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SOME 



SUMMER DAYS ABROAD 



WILLIAM STEVENS PERRY, 



Bishop of Iowa. 






Davenport, Iowa : 
CHARLES G. PLUM ME R 

1SS0. 






I THE LIBRARY! 
jOf CONGRESS 

JWA 



WASHINGTON 



Copyright by W. S. Perry, 1880. 






^;l 



Globe Printing Company, Davenport, Ioiva. 



T O 

SARA A. W. PERRY: 

The best of Wives and the best of Travelers 

these sketches of 

DAYS SPENT TOGETHER ABROAD 

ARE INSCRIBED. 



CONTENTS. 

I. Chester, - - - 3 

II. Lichfield, ... 20 

III. Rugby and Coventry, - - 30 

IV. Kenilworth and Warwick, 39 
V. Stratford-upon-Avon, - - 49 

VI. Oxford, - 55 

VII. London, 73 

VIII. Canterbury, - 81 

IX. Lambeth, - 93 

X. The Members of the Confer- 
ence, - - - - in 

XL The Charterhouse, - - 127 

XII. The Lord Mayor's Dinner. 136 

XIII. Lincoln and Riseholme, - 145 

XIV. Ely, ------ 151 

XV. Cambridge, - 157 

XVI. Kensington Palace and the 

Savoy, - - - - 174 

XVIL Westminster Abbey, - 182 

XVIII. London Streets and London 

Sights, - 198 

XIX. The Closing Days, - - 208 



"/« Summer, making quest for works of art, 
Or scenes renowned for beauty 

— Wordsworth, The Prelude. 



PREFACE. 

It is in compliance with the request of 
friends that these sketches, written amidst the 
scenes they describe, and intended as a record 
of most happy and profitable days abroad, are 
now re-issued from the columns of the daily 
and diocesan newspapers, where they origin- 
ally appeared. That they contain an account 
of the Second Lambeth Conference of Bishops 
in communion with the Church of England, 
may give them a value they could not other- 
wise claim. Such as they are, they are pub- 
lished, as they were written, for the pleasure 
of the author and his friends. 



SOME SUMMER DAYS ABROAD, 



CHESTER. 



UCH as one may enjoy life on the ocean, the 
change from the broad, blue expanse of the 
Atlantic, to the green-sward and shaded lanes 
and by-ways, and the luxuriant hedge-rows and 
fields of England, is inspiring. No one would 
linger in Liverpool, with its ceaseless whirl of 
busy industries and its deafening roar of traffic, 
longer than to gather up one's luggage ; pass the 
brief investigations of the courteous officers of 
the Customs ; and hurry through the crowded 
streets to the station where the journey inland 



4 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

is begun. Declining the honor of a public 
reception, tendered by the Archdeacon of Liv- 
erpool, who met us at the landing-stage despite 
the pouring rain ; and leaving for others the 
speeches and "toasts" of a u breakfast," to 
which clergy and others had gathered near-by, 
we speedily reached the Lime-street Station, of 
the Northwestern railway, and were soon pass- 
ing swiftly from spot to spot familiar to us from 
past acquaintance, but as fresh and beautiful as 
if never seen before. At once began that agree- 
able but startling revival of historic memories 
which enters so constantly into one's enjoyment 
abroad, as a station so familiar by name as 
"Edgehill" was passed, beautiful in its robe of 
verdure, and, save by name, giving no trace 
of the bloody struggle, two centuries and more 
ago, between Cavalier and Roundhead, when 
the history of the English race was changed by 
the issue of the fight. Station after station, 
embowered in flowers and climbing shrubs 
each neat and attractive in its style and keep- 
ing, were swiftly left behind ; and almost ere 
we were aware, we had penetrated beneath the 
old Roman wall, and were within the "rare 
old city of Chester." 



Chester. 5 

Liverpool, with its hundreds of thousands 
of inhabitants, with its boundless wealth, and 
known all over the habitable world as a vast 
commercial centre, is but a town. It is not yet 
— though it will soon be, in the coming exten- 
sion of the English episcopate — a Bishop's see 
and seat. Chester, with but tens of thousands, 
and only known at all abroad from its past, is 
a city ; and it is the Bishop's seat and Church 
which makes it so. 

It was Whit-Tuesday, and flags were unfurled 
from public buildings and houses, and hung 
across the crooked, narrow streets ; while every 
one was in holiday spirits and attire. Whit- 
Monday and Whit-Tuesday are festivals of uni- 
versal observance in England ; and the city 
was filled with excursionists and citizens, each 
and all in quest of amusements suited to their 
respective tastes. It was a long train of pleas- 
ure-seekers that was drawn into Chester-station 
this June morning of mingled showers and sun- 
shine, but none of the merry throngs were more 
glad to arrive than our little party of pilgrims 
from the new world, reverently approaching the 
threshold of a city dating its origin back to the 
days of fable, and boasting an authentic history 



6 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

of near two thousand years. Hurrying between 
the rain drops we were soon rattling over the 
stones of Foregate street, a part of the old Wat- 
ling street of the Romans, and trodden by heel 
and hoof ever since the very first Whitsuntide 
of the Apostles' days. Passing beneath the 
Eastgate, the porta principalis of the city, 
we were welcomed by our kind hostesses at 
the Grosvenor House, a model English inn, and 
in our comfortable apartments found rest and 
needed refreshments. It was not long before 
we were threading our way through the sloppy 
streets and crooked by-ways leading to the 
Cathedral of St. Werburgh, which, though sur- 
passed in grandeur and size by many of the 
Cathedrals of our Mother Church, is still inex- 
pressably dear to American hearts, not only 
because it is the first their eyes look out upon, 
but also from the loving interest felt by so many 
comers from the new world in the very Rev- 
erend Dean of Chester, Dr. J. S. Howson, whose 
famous work on "The Life and Times of St. 
Paul," is found in almost every American Chris- 
tian's home, and whose visit a few years since, 
at the time of our General Convention in Balti- 
more, left impressions never to be effaced. 



Chester. 7 

The see of Chester was founded in 1541, 
prior to which time the present Cathedral had 
been the Benedictine church of St. Werburgh. 
There were Norman bishops of Chester, but 
their Cathedral was the Church of St. John the 
Baptist, the romantic ruins of which we visited 
at night-fall, when the ravages of a thousand 
years seen in the worn smooth stones and 
crumbling buttresses, arches, pinnacles and 
tower, gave to this venerable pile a striking 
beauty impossible to describe. The Church of 
St. Werburgh was begun in the year 1095 by 
Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester*; and kinsman of 
William the Conqueror, with the co-operation 
of Anselm, immediately before his appointment 
to the see of Canterbury. Eight hundred busy 
years have passed, and yet some of the Norman 
arches placed in solid masonry, under the foun- 
der's eye, are still to be seen, and we gazed 
reverently upon these indisputable links con- 
necting the Church of our love and membership 
to-day — Christ's Holy Catholic Church, against 
which the gates of hell have never prevailed — 
with the Church of Anselm, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, in the age of the Norman conquest, 
not forgetting that tradition claims that this Nor- 



8 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

man structure occupied the site of a Roman 
temple of Apollo, which in turn had replaced 
a still older shrine of the Druids. The Cathe- 
dral Church of St. Werburgh is cruciform, as is 
the case with all Cathedrals and many parochial 
churches as well, the massive and weather beaten 
square tower, built on solid Norman piers rising 
above the intersection of the transepts with the 
nave. The north transept contains the Norman 
work of Hugh Lupus, remaining where it was 
placed eight hundred years ago. The choir with 
the "Lady-chapel," now exquisitely restored, 
and in fact the' whole eastern portion of the 
Cathedral is of Early English architecture : the 
rest is Decorated with Perpendicular alterations 
and additions. Thus the architectural details of 
the church tell with no uncertainty the periods 
of its gradual completion, which occupied four 
centuries. In the year in which America was 
discovered, Abbot Simon Ripley, whose initials 
appear on the capitals of some of the lofty 
columns in the nave, virtually completed the 
Cathedral as it stands to-day. Slight alterations 
and improvements were subsequently made ; 
one of the cross-beams of the massive oaken 
roof still exhibiting the armorial bearings of 



Chester. 9 

Cardinal Wolsey, but from the death of Ripley 
to the present day when good Dean Howson 
undertook the work of restoration, on which 
nearly half a million of dollars have been spent, 
this noble shrine has been practically unchanged. 
At our first pilgrimage to S*t. Werburgh's 
shrine, three years ago, only the cold, gray nave 
was open for the daily prayers ; but now the 
work of restoration had so far progressed that 
the glorious choir, with its almost unrivaled oak 
carvings above, around, beneath the "stalls" 
and " throne, 1 ' was opened for service, and we 
said our prayers at evening amidst the surpliced 
clergy and choristers, with a goodly number of 
the faithful. It was not a little startling to have 
the melody of choral song, in which the service 
was exquisitely rendered, interrupted by the 
clear and emphatic announcement by the Dean, 
ere the prayer of General Thanksgiving was 
sung, that " Bishop and Mrs. Stevens Perry de- 
sire to return thanks for a safe voyage across 
the Atlantic." The thanks were heartily and 
gratefully offered up, and as we rose from our 
knees at the close of this simple but most beau- 
tiful service, we were not surprised to find a 
fellow-voyager at our side, himself for the first 



io Some Summer Days Abroad. 

time in a Cathedral and not at all acquainted 
with the Church's ways, tearfully confessing to a 
companion who was hardly less affected, that it 
was the most impressive service he had ever 
attended. As the white-robed procession of 
choristers and clergy, preceded by the Beadle 
with his silver mace, moved slowly out of the 
choir, it was an unexpected pleasure to grasp 
the hand of the good Bishop of Western New 
York, Dr. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, to whom our 
presence among the throng of worshippers was 
made known by the public announcement of our 
request for prayers. After this meeting of long- 
parted friends, doubly pleasant in a foreign land, 
the Dean joined us and was our most interesting 
and instructive guide, as we devoted the hours 
of closing day to an examination of the restora- 
tions and additions of the past three years. 

It is in the Choir and Sanctuary that all the 
resources of decorative art have been brought 
by man, to make glorious the shrine of his God. 
The choir-screen of oak elaborately carved, 
separates from the somewhat cold and cheerless 
nave the " stalls " on either side, crowned with 
oaken canopies of richest tracery, and reveals 
the Bishop's Throne springing from the pedes- 



Chester. i'i 

tal of St. Werburgh's shrine, with even richer 
■elaboration in its wonderful lightness and grace- 
fulness of decorated carving. The very seats of 
the stalls, or misericordice, so arranged as to 
-afford a slight rest during the long " hours" 
-of mediaeval worship, and yet to betray to his 
•downfall the incautious occupant who might 
lean too heavily against them as he sought to 
catch a moment's sleep during his devotions, are 
carved with a beauty and grotesqueness which 
gives them especial interest. One portrays with 
remarkable expression the first quarrel of a new- 
ly-married couple. On another the adversary of 
souls, under the guise of a lion, is devouring a 
sinner bodily ; while on still another, as a 
dragon, he has the offender partly swallowed 
with his legs hanging out of his jaws. Queer 
fantasies, which like the impish gargoyles and 
grinning apes that appear elsewhere in these 
Cathedrals, tell of a vein of humor even in these 
sombre men of old ! The Altar, exquisitely 
carved, and composed of woods brought from 
holy land, is approached by a gradual ascent of 
tessellated pavements, and is surmounted by the 
two altar-lights which symbolize the two natures 
of our Lord. Above it rises a magnificent rere- 



12 Soinc Summer Days Abroad. 

dos of Venetian mosaics, while around, above, 
behind are the springing arches of massive stone, 
gracefully carved in all the varied patterns of 
the Decorated style of architecture, supporting 
the vaulted roof, which, with its adornments of 
color and gilding, as Hawthorne well describes 
it, " like a pavillion of the sunset, all purple and 
gold," makes most beautiful in all its appoint- 
ments the House of God. It is indeed holy 
ground where we stand and kneel to say and 
sing the prayers and praises said and sung by 
our common ancestors since St. Werburgh, 
daughter of the Mercian king in the old days 
of Briton's first conversion to the faith of Christ, 
gave herself to the religious life and won a 
name and fame by her lowly, loving, serving of 
Christ, which shall never die. Century after 
century since has left its traces that she "being 
dead yet speaketh ;" and, honoring her as she 
in her life of Christian devotion honored her 
Master, Christ, the faithful have with holy hands 
piled up "these stones for a memorial." 

But words fail to describe a Cathedral ; or to 
give intelligibly the impressions of the Cathe- 
dral service as the sweet solemn tones of choral 
song went up and up towards the lofty roof, 



Chester. 13 

filling with sacred melody every portion of this 
vast structure. Again and again during our 
resti rig-days at Chester did we seek the Cathe- 
dral for the charm and comfort of the daily 
matins and evensong, and the memory of the 
satisfaction and pleasure afforded by these ser- 
vices will not ever pass away. 

Passing from the Cathedral as the twilight 
deepened, we lingered for a moment to look in 
upon the Chapter House, with its library of 
worm-eaten tomes, and then retracing our steps 
through the vaulted cloisters which enclose a 
square of England's green-sward, we entered the 
old Refectory, nearly a hundred feet in length, 
with its reader's pulpit whence some homily or 
legend of the saints was read during the homely 
meal in the old monastic days. Across the 
narrow passage was the Bishop's Palace, now 
used for the King's Grammar School, and the 
spacious Deanery which had been our plea- 
sant home at our last visit to Chester. Thus on 
every side were the memorials of the Church's 
hold upon the very soil of this old Cathedral 
City ; and with shrine and sepulchre, with col- 
lege and cathedral, with the House of God and 
the homes of His faithful servants grouped 



14 Some Slimmer Days Abroad. 

around the holy place in picturesque array, we 
felt as we had never felt before the power and 
strength of the Mother Church of the English- 
speaking race, — the Church of our membership 
and love ! 

Turning from the Cathedral and its solemn, 
sacred associations, a few steps through the 
crooked, narrow, and crowded streets, brought 
us to the "Rows." We had seen something of 
the kind at Berne, in Switzerland, but still the 
Chester " rows " are unique. All along the 
principal streets, Foregate, Eastgate, Watergate, 
Northgate, and Bridge streets, by Pepper Alley, 
and beside portions of the city walls, the travel- 
ler's footway lies directly through the first-floor 
fronts of the houses, at a height of several feet 
above the level of the carriage-way, so that one 
can shop, or walk, or lounge from street to street 
without ever passing from under cover of the 
projecting second-storys, save at the street cross- 
ings, or where modern structures have replaced 
this novel peculiarity of old-time architecture. 
Posts springing from the ground level of these 
" rows " support the overhanging houses which 
thus cover and encase the foot-passenger's path ; 
while the shops at the one side, and the booths 






Chester. 15 

and stalls of less pretentions salesmen at the 
other, give to his walks among these " rows " 
a novelty nowhere else to be had. One can 
"shop" undeterred by the drenching rain which 
at the time of our visit poured day after day 
from the heavy clouds above ; and even in the 
bright sunshine which we have at other visits 
seen in Chester, there is here a refuge from the 
glare and heat which can never penetrate these 
labyrinthal ways. 

But even the "rows" are lost sight of in 
comparison with the city walls. As Hawthorne 
well says, '•' there is not a more curious place in 
the world," than this old-time city, and of Ches- 
ter's curiosities certainly the walls may claim 
the foremost place. A stroll about these walls 
by moonlight or sunlight, for we tried both, 
carries one back full two thousand years. The 
Romans replaced, with their solid masonry, the 
rude mud-walls and simple earth-works of the 
Britons ; and this was done at the very begin- 
ning of the era named and dated from Christ. 
When the conquerors of the world retired from 
this distant outpost of the Empire, these mass- 
ive fortifications were left unharmed, and since 
that clav of British independence the tide of 



16 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

battle has surged again and again about these 
barriers of stone, defiant alike of the assaults of 
time or man. Britons and Romans, Picts and 
Goths, Saxons and Danes, Normans and Welsh, 
have met in bloody conflict at numberless points 
of the promenade, into which this ancient de- 
fence has been transformed. During the various 
civil struggles of England these solid fortifica- 
tions have seen the adherents of York and Lan- 
caster, Roundhead and Cavalier, fighting to the 
death on either side. At the Castle which dates 
its origin back to the days of Alfred, if tradition 
is to be believed, King Richard II. was confined 
a prisoner in 1399 ; while from the Phoenix 
Tower, a sightly outlook on these broad walls, 
King Charles I. witnessed the defeat of his army, 
at Rowton Heath, about two miles from the 
city. From another point St. John's Church, 
with its lofty, but time-worn tower, and the 
Bishop's palace, where the learned Dr. Jacoo- 
son, the present incumbent of the see resides, 
are seen ; while a little further on the eye takes 
in the charming river Dee, with the "Roodeye" 
meadow where the athletic sports and games of 
the Romans, the jousts of chivalry, the pageants 
and plays of mediaeval days, and the less stately 



Chester. 17 

sports of modern times, have each in turn found 
place. In fact, the whole promenade of fully 
two miles in length, along these relics of Roman 
and early English times, affords at every turn a 
panorama of beauty and interest rarely excelled. 
The old houses of Chester are remarkable 
for their half-timber fronts, with sharp gables 
and quaint carvings. Near the Watergate is 
that ancient hostelry, the Yacht Inn, itself one 
•of the quaint oaken-ribbed taverns ot England's 
historic past, and interesting to Americans as 
the place where the eccentric and witty Dean 
Swift stopped on one of his journeyings to and 
from Ireland. Enraged at the failure of the 
Cathedral dignitaries to accept his invitation 
to dine with him at his Inn, he scratched upon 
the window pane a distich not over-flattering to 
the city or the clergy, which is still preserved. 
Returning towards the Grosvenor Inn, one can- 
not fail to notice the stately Palace of the Bish- 
ops of Chester, known as Bishop Lloyd's House. 
Grotesquely carved from the very apex of the 
gable to the level of the "row," this unique 
specimen of seventeenth century domestic arch- 
itecture exhibits a profusion of ornament and 
•excentricity of design nowhere else to be seen. 



1 8 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

The story of our redemption is carved all along 
the panneled front, while the quarterings of the 
Bishop's and his Monarch's arms, with the date 
of the prelate's death, adorn the centre of this 
strange, unique facade. Still further on is the 
famous " God's Providence House,'' the home, 
if family tradition is to be believed, of one of 
the writer's ancestors, who, to commemorate 
the fact that this house alone in Chester was 
spared at the visitation of the plague, which rav- 
aged the city during the seventeenth century, 
had carved on an oaken cross-beam, still bearing 
its grateful legend, the words — 

1652. God's Providence is mine inheritance. 1652. 

Elsewhere is the old Palace of the Stanley fam- 
ily, elaborately carved, and bearing on its front 
the date of its erection — 1591 ; and the grand 
old mansion now the u Bear and Billet" tavern, 
which was formerly the residence of the Earls 
of Shrewsbury, when they visited the city of 
Chester. Strikingly picturesque must have been 
this old-time city ere the tasteless architecture 
of modern days invaded the long rows of half- 
timber fronts, with their sharp gables and pin- 
nacles, making ever)' street a study and every 
home unique. 



Chester. 19 

But we might go on indefinitely in depicting 
the points of interest in this rare old place, where 
almost every excavation brings to light a Roman 
altar or inscription, or an early English coin, or 
relic of forgotten days ; and where there still 
remains so much inseparably connected with the 
historic past, as to make a pilgrimage here most 
fascinating to anyone who cares at all for the 
days gone by. Time and space are wanting to 
tell all we saw or all we did in our repeated vis- 
its to this attractive spot, which may be styled 
the door-way to the old English home. 

We paid our respects to the Lord Bishop at 
his Palace, dined and visited at the Deanery, 
from which, just before our coming, Mr. Glad- 
stone had passed out to his home at Hawarden 
Castle near-by ; and at length, after several most 
happy days, reluctantly took the train for Lich- 
field, not, alas ! to visit the loved Bishop, from 
whom but a few weeks since we had received a 
most urgent invitation, but to stand beside his 
newly-turfed grave ! Farewell ! quaint old Ches- 
ter. Five times have we visited its " rows," and 
walls, and Cathedral, and even now, as we re- 
vive our pleasant memories of its attractions, we 
would fain make a pilgrimage thither again ! 



II. 



LICHFIELD. 

IT was by a winding road and over flinty stones 
that we were driven along our way from the 
valley of the Trent to the crown of the grassy 
knoll, where, in its quiet loveliness, far from the 
busy life of the centres of trade and industry, 
sits like a queen the cathedral city of Lichfield. 
The tall hedge-rows on either side were casting 
their slant shadows as the day declined ; and 
even the cold, gray road-side walls, almost hidden 
with their dense, luxuriant mingling of ivy and 
moss and lichens, were mottled with tintings of 



Lichfield. 21 

gold and crimson and living green. We passed 
a row of modern villas, near the station, built 
of bright red brick, and yet with their quaint 
gables and odd chimney-pots ; their, diamond 
shaped window panes and comfortable balconies, 
and above all with their garniture of sweet briar 
and eglantine, seeming quite cozy and home-like. 
All the while the three tall spires of the Cathe- 
dral, unique in their graceful symmetry of out- 
line as in their number, were seen standing out 
in bold and beautiful relief against the setting 
sun. Under the elms and surrounded by me- 
morials of the dead of many generations, we 
noticed the noble Church of S. Michael, and it 
was not without many crowding memories of 
our connection for some years with its American 
namesake, S. Michael's, Litchfield, Connecticut, 
that we paused for a moment to imprint upon 
memory the fine proportions and beautiful 
surroundings of this venerable structure. We 
were soon in the narrow streets, and after a 
brief delay found ourselves quite at home at the 
Black Swan Inn. Through an arched passage 
opening into a paved courtyard we entered this 
old-time hostlery, on the one side finding the 
coffee room, where the pretty bar-maids were 



22 So?ne Su77imer Days Abroad. 

quickly busied in making preparations for a 
substantial meal, while on the other side of the 
way were the long suites of parlors and cham- 
bers connected by winding passages, and low and 
dark, and musty as if with the use of centuries. 
The dinner over, we sought the shady way lead- 
ing to the Cathedral Close. It was now bright 
moonlight, and as we climbed the slight ascent, 
skirting the Minster Pool, there opened to our 
view in all their airy splendor, the peaks and 
pinnacles, the three battlemented towers with 
their graceful buttresses and spires, and all the 
intricate and lavish adornment of the great west 
front. 

" Lo ! with what dep'.h of blackness thrown 
Against the clouds, far up the skies 
The walls of the Cathedral rse, 
Like a myste ious grove of s'onc. 
With fitful lights and shadows blending, 
As from behind, the moon ascending, 
Lights its dim aisles and paths unknown!" 

It was a scene and sight never to be forgot- 
ten ! All possible shapes of beauty seemed in 
fantastic combinations and arrangement to crowd 
the retina ; and even the time worn and weather 
beaten stones, the niches with their half defaced 
and broken statues, the crumbling buttresses, 
and far up on high — 



Lichfield. 23 

" The Rose, above the western portal, 

Flamboyant with a thousand gorgeous colors, 
The perfect flower of Gothic loveliness," — 

Each and all seemed etherialized, spiritualized 
as bathed in the flood of moonlight. We ling- 
ered till the shadows deepened, and then, pass- 
ing reverently to the side, threaded our way 
among the dwellings of the Cathedral dignitaries, 
peopled even in the stillness of this lovely night 
of June, not only with the living but with the 
memories of those who like Addison and John- 
son and Garrick, and the unfortunate Major 
Andre, had paced these walks and trod upon 
the yielding turf of this quiet Close, in the years 
long passed. Our shadowy path was full of 
memories. 

The Cathedral lost little if any of its weird 
beauty, when the pale light of the moon gave 
place to the broad glare of noon-day. Grand as 
is its noble exterior, the view when the nave is 
entered through the central western portal is one 
of striking grandeur. The architecture within 
is unusually graceful in all its details ; and be- 
yond the light choir-screen of metal-work the 
eye takes in the elaborate reredos of the altar, a 
mass of costly marble and alabaster, and finally 



24 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

rests on the stained glass of the Lady-chapel, 
glowing with its rainbow tints between the dark 
lines of tracery. The chief portions of the 
Cathedral are of the Early English and Decor- 
ated styles of architecture, and its erection 
occupied the whole of the thirteenth century 
and the first-quarter of the fourteenth. Per- 
pendicular windows were inserted during the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the central 
spire was rebuilt from a design by the celebrated 
Wren, after the Restoration. The glass is of 
singular richness and beauty. It was obtained 
after the destruction of the windows by the 
Puritans, from the abbey of Herckenrode, in 
the bishopric of Liege, and was made between 
the years 1530 and 1540, a period when the art 
of staining glass had attained great perfection. 
We wandered reverently among the monu- 
ments of the dead ; and were hushed to silence 
as we stood before one of Chantrey's exquisite 
conceptions — two lovely children in each other's 
arms, and both in the embrace of death. We 
noticed the noble cenotaph erected to commem- 
orate the singular daring of Major Hodgscn, 
whose romantic capture of the King of Oude is 
sculptured on its front. Chantrey's fine kneel- 



Lichfield. 35 

ing figure of Bishop Rider was not overlooked ; 
but even the splendor of these and other me- 
morials of the historic dead were forgotten as 
we passed outside the temple to stand rever- 
ently and regretfully by the flower-strewn grave 
of the apostolic Selwyn, first Metropolitan of 
New Zealand, and ninetieth Bishop of Lichfield. 
A group of children, with uncovered heads, 
were gathered around the spot, for the great and 
good Bishop who had so lately gone from earth 
was a lover of the little ones ; and as we joined 
them we felt that although we could not see the 
dear friend whom we had known and loved for 
seven years, and whose warm welcome to Eng- 
land we had received a few short weeks before, 
his was the happy rest of Paradise ; his the 
blessed sleep in Jesus. 

After a few hours in the grand old Minster, 
four hundred feet in length and over sixty in 
height, we strolled across the meadows, most 
charming in their robe of green in the pleasant 
month of June, to S. Chad's Church and the 
famous well where the old Bishop and mis- 
sionary baptized his converts. The Church of 
Chadstowe occupies the traditional site of the 
Saint's orrtory and place of death, and shows 



26 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

the marks of time. As we passed through its 
aisles to the well, we lingered for a moment to 
inspect the cottages of the poor, cozily nestling 
under the very shadow of the old-time church. 
The water of S. Chad's well has a mystic power, 
and those who drink of it and wish will have 
their longing gratified. We had drank once 
before from its deep, living spring, and wished 
that we might come again to Lichiield, beautiful 
and most winsome in its loveliness, as it lay 
before our eyes in the pleasant valley of the 
Trent. We drank again, and wished a second 
time, but what that wish was must not be told, 
else the charm is broken. We hope for its real- 
ization all the same. 

The early history of Lichfield is hidden 
in the mists of time ; but legends and traditions 
abound, explaining the origin of its name — 
"the field of the dead" — and connecting it with 
the persecutions attending the introduction of 
Christianity, about the beginning of the fourth 
century. The heraldic device of the city arms 
depicts the martyrs who died for the faith dur- 
ing the Dioclesian persecution, but the story 
has doubtless grown with time, and may have 
had but slight foundation in fact, if any at all. 



Lichfield. 27 

The new religion was crushed for a time, and 
only reappears in the middle of the seventh 
century, when Oswi, the Anglo-Saxon King 
of Northumbria, conquered Mercia and caused 
Diuma to be consecrated Bishop by Finan, 
the Bishop of Lindisfarne. A few years later, 
Ceadda, or S. Chad, the great Saint of Lich- 
field, appears, whose history, although made 
romantic by the legend-mongers of later days, 
has still the sub-stratum of historic truth. He 
was a missionary Bishop, and his converts were 
numbered by thousands. For two years and a 
half he administered his Mercian diocese — as 
the monkish chronicles describe it, " gloriosis- 
si?ne" Holiness, humility, patient devotion, 
indefatigable preaching and constant pastoral 
•oversight were the characteristics of his Episco- 
pate, and as his death drew near, we are told by 
the venerable Bede that his cell was filled with 
celestial harmony from angelic choirs, who came 
to bear the worn and weary Bishop to Paradise. 
Later, though only for a time, the See of Lich- 
field was made an Archbishopric, and still later 
at was united with Coventry. 

In the fourteenth century a tournament was 
held in Lichfield, and Edward the Third with 
3 



25 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

seventeen knights, were the " joiisters." In 
1397 Richard the Second kept his Christmas 
feast at Lichfield, where two thousand oxen and 
two hundred tuns of wine were consumed in 
the festivities. Two years later the King was- 
brought to Lichfield as a prisoner. A few hun- 
dred years passed, and in the civil wars the 
Roundheads besieged the Cavaliers, who had 
gathered here under the command of the 
Earl of Chesterfield. The Puritan leader, Lord 
Brooke, who had avowed his purpose of destroy- 
ing the Cathedral, and had publicly prayed that 
God would " by some special token manifest 
unto them His approbation of that their design," 
was killed by a shot aimed from the Minster- 
battlements, and as the event occurred on S. 
Chad's day (March 2d), the interposition of 
the patron saint was credited with this signal 
deliverance. Still, after ammunition and food 
were exhausted, the Royalists, though making a 
spirited defence, were compelled to surrender. 
Later, Prince Rupert was here, but the triumph, 
after all, \sn s complete, and these iconoclasts, in 
their hatred of all that was venerable or attrac- 
tive in the worship of God, destroyed the mon- 
uments, broke the effigies of bishops ana knights 



Lichfield, zg 

of the olden times, stole the sepulchral brass- 
es, demolished the painted windows, burnt the 
church records and the organ, tore up the sacred 
vestments, travestied the holy rites of baptism 
by carying a calf wrapped in linen to the font, 
dipping it in water and bestowing upon it some 
ribald name ; and so, after unparalleled outrages, 
left desolate the holy and beautiful house of God. 
Traces of their vandalism still appear on shat- 
tered effigies and monuments. But since the 
Restoration, the work of repair and replacement 
has hardly ceased, and in a few years this vener- 
able shrine will have its pristine beauty, only 
softened and hallowed by the touch of time. 

A drive through the market-place, where a 
massive statue opposite the house of his birth 
commemorates the connection of Dr. Samuel 
Johnson with this spot, and a lingering glance 
as we passed by the beautiful Churches of S. 
Mary and S. Michael, and we were hurrying to 
the station. Soon the three spires of the Cathe- 
dral melted into the haze of the horizon, and 
we were swiftly borne away from this lovely 
spot, among whose most hallowed assotioncias 
will ever be the memory that it was the last 
home of Selwyn, England's most faithful mis- 
sionary Bishop. 



Ill 



RUGBY AND COVENTRY. 

WE were hastening to Coventry, when, by 
a lucky mishap, we found ourselves at 
Rugby with half-an-hour to wait. Memories 
of Dickens's "Mugby Junction" faded away 
from mind, as there came full and strong to 
our recollection the name and fame of Thomas 
Arnold, that wonder-working Head-Master of 
Rugby, whose noble life and manly Christian 
teachings are reproduced in the lives of those 
who hung upon the truths he taught while liv- 
ing, or are in tuin transmitting their master's 



Rugby and Coventry. 31 

word and work to others, now that he has 
passed away. And so we saw with profound 
interest the quadrangles familiar to all readers 
of "Tom Brown," with the "boys" in their 
cricketing or boating costumes, hurrying to or 
from the play grounds or their rooms, and then 
looked in upon the class-rooms, dormitories, 
cabinets and library, all far from presenting 
that "spick an I span" appearance which our 
Jii Jier schools afford, but i. earing evident traces 
of the presence and pranks of veritable boys. 
On we went through halls and " quads" to the 
beautiful school chapel, which, from the very 
cross at the top of the building, on which the 
great Head-Master was wont to dwell in his 
sermons to his pupils, as symbol of the end and 
aim of Christian education, to the simple stone 
under the altar, as it stood before the chapel 
was enlarged, which marked the resting place 
of Thomas Arnold, was filled with memories 
of the life-work, and proofs of the far-reaching 
influence, of this great-hearted Christian teach- 
er. We pa-sedfrom this beautiful chapel, turn- 
ing reverently as we left, to see the massive 
altar-cnxs shining forth amidst the gloom of 
fading day, and were soon in the almost-sacred 



32 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

study where Dr. Arnold was accustomed to 
meet the "sixth form," and where amidst the 
folios, quartos and octavos of a noble library, 
lining the walls, works were written which will 
long mould English thought, and instructions 
were imparted which have never lost their force. 
This room, as we saw it on this rainy day in 
June, — even the scholars' desks, scarred and 
chipped with many a deeply-cut initial and rude 
caning; books, maps, pictures, — all, are pho* 
tographed in our " chambers of imagery," and 
will never be forgotten. Our mishap on our 
way to Coventry gave us a pleasure we had not 
anticipated. 

Soon "the three tall spires" of Coventry, 
famed for their architectural beauty, their age 
and graceful outlines, as well as their great 
height, were seen standing out grandly against 
the evening sky, as we drove from the station 
to "The Craven Arms." We were hardly 
assigned to our quaint, musty rooms, low-ce led 
and with lattice- windows opening on a narrow 
court, in this rambling hostlery of the ancient 
time, ere we sallied forth on our pi'grimage 
to the shrines and sepulchres of this spot, so 
renowned in song and story. At the Hertford 



Rugby and Coventry. 33 

street-corner, but a step from our inn, a gro- 
tesque figure of " Peeping Tom," that 

" One low churl, compact of thankless earth, 

The fatal byword of all years to come," 

was seen peering from an upper story ; and 
elsewhere in effigy or in countless reproductions 
in pictures and photographs this luckless wight 
has his shameful immortality. In St. Mary's 
Hall, once the banqueting room of St. Katha- 
rine's Guild, and built early in the sixteenth 
century, we saw the exquisite statue of the no- 
ble Lady Godiva, "the woman of a thousand 
summers back," whose u ride through Coven- 
try," to free the citizens from some servile tenure 
or oppressive tax, has given her this loving re- 
membrance, and has made her name and story 
known in verse and prose, wherever the old 
chronicles of England are read, or the verse of 
Tennyson is admired. 

In the Guild Hall, on the long tables around 
which the magistrates were wont to sit, were 
the papers of a number of candidates for Holy 
Orders, who were passing their examinations 
preparatory to the Trinity Sunday ordination ; 
and the long array of quires of written ques- 
tions and answers attested the number and the 



34 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

diligence of the young men who were soon to 
swell the clergy list of England's Church. On 
a raised dais was some tapestry of great beauty 
and antiquity, filled with life-size representa- 
tions of medaeval notables, but mutilated of 
course by Cromwell's men, traces of whose de- 
structive malice are everywhere t be seen ; and 
in a little hall, charters and seals and autographs- 
made up a most interesting collection for t':e 
antiquarian's study. An autograph of the ill- 
fated Anne Boleyn was there, a letter announc- 
ing the birth of Princess Elizabeth, who was 
to be the good Queen Bess ; and the room was 
crowded with similar relics of long-past years,. 
and of worthies long since mouldered into dust. 
We penetrated into the crypt and saw the 
grand provision made by the guil 1 of old for 
royal feasts and banqueting, and found our visit 
to this novel architectural pile of itself well re- 
warding our pilgrimage by the glimpses it gave 
us of the merry days of old. The long twilight, 
lasting till nearly midnight at this season, gave 
us opportunity to Wander from street to street, 
and through lane after lane. We visited first 
the Bluecoat school, where the cloistered pass- 
ages opened on the quadrangle where were the 



Rugby and Coventry. 35 

gabled residences of the pensioners on the foun- 
der's bounty. Next we sought the foundations 
of the old cathedral, for Coventry was a Bish- 
op's See of old, thus noting in our wanderings 
many a most interesting relic of old-time archi- 
tecture, and finally, from sheer fatigue, we went 
to our beds, where from between the scehted 
linen sheets, we, as we dropped asleep, rejoiced 
in heart that we were " in Coventry." 

Early in the morning we started forth to see 
the churches, visiting first St. Michael's, where 
Godiva and the Earl Leofric, her husband, were 
buried ; and where of old was a memorial of the 
gentle lady, who 

" Took the tax away 

And built herself an everlasting- fame." 

The church, four hundred feet in length, with 
a spire two hundred and three feet in height, 
with over three thousand sittings, (filled, we 
were told, each Sunday night at the regular 
church service) is one of the finest gothic struc- 
tures in England, and is, we believe, the largest 
parish church. It was founded about the year 
1 133, and the spire, which was twenty-two 
years in building, was finished in 1395. The 
roof is of sombre oak, and is of great beauty. 



36 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Much of the ol 1 glass remains, and the interi- 
or, from its very immensity, is at once grand 
and impressive. The body of the church, re- 
built in 1434, has been exquisitely restore 1, and 
few cathedrals exceed this noble Church of St. 
Michael's in simple elegance. 

Trinity Church is but a few steps from the 
shaded church yard of St. Michael's. It dates 
back to the year 1260, but the mutilations of 
time have defaced the beauty of its fabric. 
Still, its interior is well worth a visit, while its 
stone pulpit, its memorial windows and its lofty 
roof are features of interest. Christ Church, 
though le.ss beautiful, makes the third of the 
Coventry's tall spires, and mark the site of an 
ancient house of the mendicant Grey Friars. 

But the choicest bit of ancient architecture 
in Coventry is Ford's Hospital, in Grey Friars' 
Street, where, on a foundation dating back to 
the early days of Coventry, a quaint old home 
is provided for a number of pensioners who 
have their rooms in this exquisite old-time struc- 
ture, which almost seems to have stepped bodilv 
forth from the pages of Froissart or Moastre- 
let, those faithful chroniclers of mediaeval days. 
The front of this old " Hospital," built of heavy 



Rugby and Coventry, 37 

crossed-timber their intes with rstices filled in 
with plaster, and terminating in peaked gables 
of fantastic styles, is of the style of eight hun- 
dred years and more ago, and through the quaint 
portal, with its carvings and heraldic devices on 
every side, so that the inmates could look down 
upon those who were coming in below ; while 
reaching far behind were the little gardens and 
shady walks of the favored inmates of this quiet 
nook. Among the pleasant sights in Coventry, 
Ford's Hospital should never be missed. The 
romances of chivalry receive a new meaning as 
we study such an interesting bit of really con- 
temporary architecture. We could almost see 
the train of mailed knights sweeping down the 
crooked, narrow streets, or the solemn proces- 
sion of gray cowled and clad monks emerging 
from their conventual cloisters on some grand 
feast day of their calendar, with banners and 
crosses and all the insignia of their faith. From 
the windows it required but the slightest effort 
of imagination to seem to see the bright faces 
of English maidens of the days gone by, scan- 
ning with interest the passers-by below ; or to 
mark the sturdy yeomanry pouring forth from 
the thatched cottages as they sought pleasure or 



3S Some Summer Days Abroad. 

employ in the very by-paths we were threading 
with reverent tread. 

Full of interest both to the archaeologist and 
the churchman- is Coventry. It has a history 
both ecclesiastical and secular, and it was with 
no little regret that we took our carriages to en- 
joy the famous drive to Kenilworth. Again and 
again did we look behind us on our way, and it 
was long ere the three tall spires faded out of 
view, and Coventry was with us but a memory 
and a regret. 



IV. 



KENILWORTH AND WARWICK. 

THE drive from Coventry to Kenilworth is 
famous. Under spreading oaks, with bits 
of most romantic scenery on either side, we 
drove along, meeting now a squad of cavalry, 
whose brilliant dress and accoutrements were 
in marked contrast with the quiet beauty of the 
undergrowth and hedge-rows, along side of 
which their course and ours was leading, and 
now encountering a group of laughing girls on 
a wild-wood stroll, making the air ring with 
their merriment, as they gaily trod over the gorse 



40 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

and heather with that easy swinging gait, which 
told of out-door life and labor. Soon we were 
passing through the narrow, crooked streets of 
Ken il worth, with glimpses now and then of the 
castle ruins, the priory gate, and the venerable 
Abbey Church, and almost ere we realized the 
fact the grand old towers, made so famous by 
Scott's vivid descriptions, stood out before us 
against the sky ; and we were treading rever- 
ently on ground where history and romance 
have made attractive each crumbling stone and 
broken arch, each clambering vine of ivy or bit 
of springing turf. Artist, historian, antiqua- 
rian, novelist, have each in turn done homage at 
this shrine. Famed indeed, in poetry and prose, 
are these ruins where Elizabeth held court, as 
earlier sovereigns had before, and which to 
countless minds are ever associated with the 
story of the villany of Varney, the weakness of 
Leicester, and the wrongs and sorrows of sweet 
Amy Robsart. We wandered in and out, amidst 
towers and battlements, banqueting halls and 
courts, corridors and chambers, still beautiful 
though in ruin ; and then, our pilgrimage over, 
we were soon within the grounds of Stoneleigh 
Abbey, through which we drove under the 



Kenilworth and Warwick. 41 

grand old trees, with the deer browsing on either 
side of us, and over roads smooth and hard as- 
stone itself, till we were out among the fields 
again. Guy's Cliff, the seat of one of the Percy 
family and deriving its name from the bold and 
precipitous rocks on and in and from which 
the castle, surmounted by the chapel with its em- 
battled tower, is built, was shortly seen and after 
a walk down a pleasant avenue of trees we 
reached the spot whence we could see the fair 
beauty of a scene noted for centuries. Here 
Guy, Earl of Warwick, hero of many a nursery 
tale, concluded a life of adventure by years of 
austerity and devotion, seeking spiritual consola- 
tion at the hands of a man of God who dwelt 
in a cell formed out of the solid rock, and living 
on the alms daily received from the hand of his 
neglected countess, who only knew of his near- 
ness when the hand of death was laid upon him. 
Near by, on Blacklow hill, rises in full view of 
the passer-by a stone cross marking the spot 
where nearly six centuries ago Piers Gaveson r 
kW the minion of a hateful king," was beheaded r 
as the inscription tells us, u by barons lawless as 
himself." Passing through rows of 4i sombre 
yews," mingled on either side with large forest 



42 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

trees and fragrant shrubs, we hastened on till 
we were in Warwick, with the battlements of 
its grand old castle full In view. 

Here again we were on a spot whose history 
dates back to the age of fable. Founded, as the 
the legends state, by King Cymbeline in the tw- 
light years of English history, it was here that 
the Romans came in the first centuries after 
Christ. Here at a later day the Danes destroyed 
the hamlet which was rebuilt by Etheltieda, the 
daughter of Alfred the Great. Here the " King- 
maker" lived, and clustering here are many of 
the noted names and events of English history. 

The approach of the Castle is through an 
embattled gateway, opening into a winding road 
cut in the solid rock. The way is arched and 
shaded by leafy shrubs and trees, while the moss 
and ivy cover with a robe of living green the 
sides of the rock-hewn path. A sudden turn in 
the way brings us to the outer court, where the 
long line of towers and castellated walls and 
lofty halls strikes the eye in all its bold magnifi- 
cence. Here, as in so many other old-time spots, 
we have on the left a " Caesar's Tower," coeval 
with the Norman conquest. On the right a poly- 
gonal turret with massive walls, called Guy's 



Kenilworth and Warwick. 43 

Tower, rises to a height of one hundred and 
twenty-eight feet. In the centre of the connect- 
ing wall is the ponderous gateway, flanked by 
turrets, and opening into another passage way 
with towers and battlements rising far above the 
first. Here an old portcullis remains and still 
hangs ready for use, while before the whole ap- 
proach is the disused moat with an arch thrown 
over it at the gate-way, where of old the draw- 
bridge was suspended. 

Passing through the well defended barbacan 
we reach the court yard, a spacious area of rich 
green-sward. On the left stands the grand cas- 
tellated mansion of the feudal barons of War- 
wick. Almost uninjured by the tooth of time, 
£L fire on Advent Sunday, 1S71, consumed a 
portion of the great hall with many of the 
treasures it contained ; but the restoration im- 
mediately begun has been successfully carried 
out, and few, if any, traces of decay or ruin are 
now to be seen. On one side the old Norman 
Tower appears; and in front is the "Keep," 
clothed "from turret to foundation stone" with 
spreading vines and the luxuriant ivy which is 
everywhere to be seen. On the right are two 
unfinished towers, (one of which was begun 

4 



44 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

by Richard III.), the turrets and halls joined by 
ramparts and embattled walls of great thickness 
and height. Open flights of steps and broad 
walks on the top of the walls form a means of 
communication between all portions of the cas- 
tle, and afford abundant illustrations of the mode 
of conducting the defense of such posts in feudal 
days. The whole effect is grand beyond descrip- 
tion, and one seems carried back to the days of 
chivalry and revels amidst the most glorious 
of mediaeval scenes. 

Entering the great hall, one has, at a single 
glance, a view of the grand suite of state rooms 
on the one side and the domestic apartments on 
the other, extending upwards of three hundred 
and thirty feet. At the end of the chapel pass- 
age is the celebrated painting by Vandyck, of 
Charles I. This is a noble picture, of life-size 
and in the distance nearly resembling life itself. 
From the windows of the great Hall there is a 
charming view of the Avon ; while stretching 
out far as the eye can reach is the extensive park 
with its famous cedars of Lebanon, and forest 
trees of every hue, shape and size, making a 
scene where nature and art have combined to 
form a picture of surpassing beauty. 



Kenihvorth and Warwick. 45 

We wandered through the long array of 
apartments stored with paintings by the old 
masters, and abounding in portraits of historic 
characters, such as the unfortunate Earl of Strat- 
ford, Queen Henrietta Maria, Prince Rupert, 
Loyola and Luther, Henry VIII. and Anne 
Boleyn, with many others. Superb cabinets; 
tables of buhl and marquetrie, ormolu, crystal, 
china and lava vases ; bronzes and antiques, 
with splendid furniture of every style, add to 
the charms of these grand suites of rooms, in 
which you pass from one object of interest and 
beauty to another, till the mind is bewildered 
and the memory refuses to grasp one-half that 
is seen. 

Passing from the Boudoir, an ojDening in the 
wainscot leads into the u Armoury Passage," 
where there is one of the finest collections of 
ancient armor in the Kingdom. We enter room 
after room till the chapel is reached, and thence 
we pass to the state dining and breakfast rooms, 
through which the wearied sight-seer gains the 
outside world once more, oppressed by the splen- 
dor and quite worn out with the monotonous 
recitals of the tiresome guide, who hurries one 
remorselessly from room to room, caring only 



46 So?ne Su7nmer Days Abroad. 

for his half-a-crown. In the green-house is the 
celebrated Warwick Vase, an antique marble 
of great beauty, found at the bottom of a lake 
at Adrian's villa at Tivoli, and one of the finest 
specimens of ancient sculpture in existence. 
Through leafy shades we reach the river front 
of the castle ; the keep and its towers, the mills, 
the falls, the ruined arches of the bridge, all 
making up a picture of great variety and beauty, 
which once seen can never be forgotten. 

But the castle is not all that is noteworthy at 
Warwick. The churches, the streets, the old 
timber-and-plaster houses, are interesting ; and 
St. Mary's, a noble structure, contains the cele- 
brated Beauchamp Chapel with its altar-tomb 
of Purbec marble, which is considered one of 
the finest sepulchral monuments in England. 
Here Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is bu- 
ried ; but a nobler monument of this historic 
character is the interesting "Hospital" which 
he endowed as a home for twelve war-worn 
retainers, whose successors live to-day, under 
the rules, and in the rooms, dating back to the 
Elizabethan age. Leicester's Hospital is one of 
the most perfect specimens of the half-timber 
buildings in this part of England. It is built 



Ke7iilworth and Warwick. 47 

around a quadrangle with open galleries along 
the four sides, which bear in every arch, and 
all along their gabled front, escutcheons, crests, 
and coats of arms with the quaint device of the 
Bear and Ragged Staff, recurring again and 
again, while in old English lettering the appro- 
priate texts appear — Honour all Men," u Fear 
God," Honour the King," Love the Brother- 
hood," lt Be Kindly Affectioued one to Another." 
Here the i " bedesmen" live in snug but comfort- 
able quarters, each having the privacy of home 
and yet sharing in the privilege of the common 
hall. Each receives a yearly allowance of =£80, 
together with the blue-cloth cloak, which, with 
the founder's cognizance, the Bear and Ragged 
Staff in silver, dating back to the founder's day, 
are the badge of the brotherhood. 

Rising from a rock-foundation, through which 
has been pierced a gate-way to the winding 
street below, is the church attached to the Hos- 
pital of which the "Master" is the incumbent, 
and where at daily prayers the little community 
gather as one household. There is a noble 
kitchen in which the architectural details are 
enlivened with quartering* of Lord Leicester's 
arms, with the reproduction of the " Bear and 



48 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Rnsrsred Staff" in countless forms, and the ini- 
tials u R. L.," and the motto Droit et Loyal 
repeated again and again. A bit of Amy Roh- 
sart's embroidery hangs upon the oaken pannel- 
ing, with halberds, pikes, and muskets from 
various battle fields ; while the high-backed set- 
tees ranged about the chimney, which is large 
enough for the roasting of an ox, and the gleam- 
ing flngons lighted up by the glowing coals, told 
of the good cheer and comfort of this happy 
brotherhood. 

Tired and weary we rested at the " Warwick 
Arms," in comfortable quarters, though not to 
be commended for attendance or table ; and 
thus ended another happy summer day. 



STRATFORD-UPON-AVON. 

STOPPING at the " Red Horse Inn," sitting 
in the little parlor occupied by Washington 
Irving, and in the chair which bears his name, 
sleeping in the chamber he slept in, and look- 
ing into the fire-place — would it were glowing 
with sea-coals, even though it is mid-summer as 
we write ! — of which he wrote in the " Sketch 
Book," our memories of Shakespeare have plea- 
sant comminglings with those of our own Irving, 
and we, as Americans, owe a double homage as 
we write ourselves pilgrims at the shrine of 
Avon's Bard. 



50 Some Summer days Abroad. 

* 
We reached Stratford-upon-Avon after a plea- 
sant day at Leamington, a fashionable "Spa," 
not unlike an American town in its newness and 
uniformity ; and took advantage of the twilight 
to visit the birth-place of the poet, now the 
property of the nation, and whence with inter- 
esting memories of its old-time and pregnant 
associations, we bore from the neatly-kept gar- 
den a pansy " for thought." The house has 
been most carefully restored to its original con- 
dition, and is one of the half-timber structures 
peculiar to the domestic architecture of the 
mediaeval age, and the beauty of which, in con- 
trast with prosaic modern structures, at once 
fills the eye and commands our admiration. 
Quite a museum of Shakesperian pictures and 
relics, and a library of Shakesperian editions 
and illustrative works add to the attractions of 
the place — if other attractions were needed 
than its being the birth-place of England's 
greatest genius. The darkness came at length, 
and after a silent walk through Stratford streets 
we were quietly resting at the Red Horse " tak- 
ing our ease at our inn." 

The Sunday dawned auspiciously. We were 
lingering over our breakfast in the little parlor 



Stratford-upon-Avon. 51 

ever associated with Irving's name and pres- 
ence, when the good Vicar, Rev. Dr. Collis, in 
cap and gown, was introduced, bearing a letter 
from the wife of the Lord Bishop of Oxford, 
asking of our whereabout. A great meeting 
was to be held in the Sheldonian Theatre, (the 
University Hall), the coming week, and as the 
American Bishops were announced as speakers 
and the time was drawing near, the country 
was being scoured for the expected visitors. 
Satisfied as to his inquiries, the Vicar, after 
inviting us to the service in the Church of the 
Holy Trinity, where Shakespeare was baptized, 
and where his ashes lie, hurried to his early 
service, leaving us leisurely to stroll along the 
river-walk, and under the broad avenue of trees, 
till the church was reached in time for the usual 
mid-day prayers. The ladies of the party were 
placed in the choir of the church, in the finely 
carved '• stalls," occupied by the clergy and 
choristers on special occasions, and within full 
view of the monument and resting place of 
Shakespeare ; and after a sweet choral render- 
ing of the Morning Prayer and Litany, in which 
a crow led congregation most heartily joined, a 
sermon was preached by the Bishop of Iowa, 



52 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

and then the Holy Communion, chorally ren- 
dered, was administered to a large number of 
the faithful. It was a day to be remembered. 
The very air seemed laden with weird associa- 
tions and far-reaching memories. The influence 
of the spot could not be shaken oft', and when 
the solemn service was over, and the kind Vicar 
in his Oxford doctor's gown of black and scarlet 
took us over the sacred building, showing us 
each spot and shrine connected with the poet, 
and many other points of interest besides, we 
felt that our pilgrimage was indeed well repaid. 
The store of memories here laid up could not 
ever be lost. 

We were invited to dine at Shottery Hall, 
where the Vicar and his charming wife resided, 
and the approach to which was under the broad 
chestnut trees, and through the sweet meadows 
on either side of the road trod again and again 
by the young Shakespeare, seeking the thached 
cottage where Ann Hathaway dwelt. 

Shottery Hall is not an ordinary Vicarage. 
The Vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon, with the 
care of five churches and the cure of several 
thousand souls, receives a stipend less than that 
of many an American clergyman, who, doubt- 



Stratford-upon-Avon. 53 

less, often thinks with envy of the rich (?) 
benefices of the mother church. Were the 
Vicar and his wife not possessed of an ample 
fortune they could not carry on the great church 
work they have in charge — the building of 
churches, the care of the College of the Holy 
Trinity, the Sunday Schools, the pastoral visi- 
tations, the relief of bodies as well as souls, — 
occupying each moment, and making the weeks 
too short for the work to be done for Christ and 
His Church. The Hall is a beautiful mansion 
with noble rooms filled with every object of taste 
and luxury, while the grounds are of vast ex- 
tent and beauty. After the noon-time meal we 
walked through the grounds to Ann Hathaway's 
cottage, where the courtship of Shakespeare 
took place. We were shown over this interest- 
ing spot by the kindly descendant of the Hatha- 
ways, who occupies the old home, and were 
deeply interested in the old-time relics and asso- 
ciations with which the place abounds. Near- 
by was the Shottery Church of St. Andrew, 
built by Dr. and Mrs. Collis, and offering a 
charming model of a rural church. 

In the evening we were driven to the chapel 
of the College of the Holy Trinity, where after 



^_j. Some Summer Days Abroad. 

the hearty choral even-song rendered by the boys, 
of whom nearly one hundred and fifty were in 
attendance, the Bishop of Iowa preached. 

The following morning was spent in visiting 
"New Place," where Shakespeare passed the 
last few years of his life and where he died, 
and the grammar school where he was edu- 
cated, and in re-visiting the church. Here we 
examined minutely the various points of interest 
which have been so often described, and were 
specially favored in being shown the entry of 
Shakespeare's baptism on the vellum register 
of the parish, and the record of his burial. The 
font in which he was doubtless baptized is still 
preserved in a mutilated condition, and the spot 
where he lies in the chancel, among his kindred 
dead, is sacred, not alone in view of the male- 
diction, which he caused to be cut deep and 
large over his place of burial, but in view of 
the reverence which adheres to his name and 
fame. 

We wandered through the pleasant streets 
of Stratford, interested in many tokens afforded 
on every side of the veneration in which this 
poet's memory is still held, and, our pilgrimage 
over, were soon en route for Oxford. 



VI. 



OXFORD. 

IT was at nightfall that we reached the city of 
colleges and churches, the oldest seat of learn- 
ing of the English-speaking race. Meeting at 
the station an old friend, the Bishop of Freder- 
icton, Dr. Medley, and renewing most agreeably 
a pleasant acquaintance with this venerable pre- 
late, we were soon welcomed by the patroness 
of all American Church folk, Mrs. Combe, to an 
Oxford home, at the Clarendon Press. Here in 
a residence, wholly covered outside with ivy, 
and fragrant with the rare and brilliant flowers 



$6 So?7ie Summer Days Abroad. 

enclosing a broad reach of green-sward, the ex- 
terior adornments were excelled by the comfort 
and charm within. We are doing no violence 
to a sweet and saintly charity, and a Christian 
life, the fame of which is widely known in the 
world, to tell the tale, in our far distant land, 
of alms and benefactions amounting to fully half 
a million of dollars — the gifts to Christ and 
His Church by the husband of our dear hostess, 
and, since his decease, by Mrs. Combe herself. 
Churches, chapels, schools, hospitals, infirm- 
aries, sisterhoods, orphanages, and every good 
word and work have shared this lavish stream 
of charity, and in Oxford, and far and wide, at 
home and abroad, the names of Thomas Combe, 
M. A., and his beloved wife are held in grate- 
ful, loving memory. The beautiful church of 
S. Barnabas, with sittings for a thousand wor- 
shippers, was built by this most excellent man. 
The exquisite chapel of the Redcliffe Infirmary, 
adorned with a taste and beauty rarely excelled, 
was erected by the same open handed giver. 
King Edward's School, a noble foundation with 
halls, chapel and play-grounds, quite rivaling 
the older schools of England, has its " Combe" 
as well as "Keble" Hall, attesting the active, 



Oxford. 57 

personal beneficence of Mr. Combe as well as 
his large-hearted charity. 

Our Oxford home, thus presided over by one 
so worthy of love and veneration, had among 
its inner furnishings some of those wonderful art 
creations of modern days, of which the world 
itself has heard. One we had seen and admired 
at our last visit had been given by our hostess to 
Keble College. It was the famous painting by 
Holman Hunt, of Christ as the Light of the 
World. But other and most striking paintings 
by this eminent artist adorned the walls of the 
house, while the productions of Rosetti and Mil- 
lais are found in connection with the works of 
other and no less distinguished artists of modern 
times. A bust of Mr. Combe, and a most strik- 
ing reproduction of the head of the celebrated 
John Henry Newman, a life-long friend of the 
family, with many other works of art, make this 
home a treasure-house of much that is beautiful 
and rare. The importance of these art-treasures 
and the other attractions of the house may be 
understood from the fact that Prince Leopold, 
while an undergraduate of the University, was a 
frequent visitor here, bringing from time to time 
his royal brothers and sisters ; and this example 



58 Sojuc Summer Days Abroad. 

of one of the reigning family has been widely 
followed by the nobility and gentry, as well as 
by those whose rank is that of literary fame or 
civic distinction. 

Nothing can be more perfect than the hospi- 
tality of an English home. The guest is placed 
at once at his ease : every attention is shown ; 
every service rendered, and all is so unobtru- 
sively done as to excite no surprise, and call for 
no thought on the part of the recipient. It 
requires only experience to prove how thorough 
is the welcome an English home affords. Such 
a welcome to one of the most attractive of 
homes was ours, and for ten days at Oxford no 
pains were spared, no efforts withheld, to make 
our stay what it was indeed, an epoch in our 
lives. 

We had visited Oxford at this time for a 
double purpose: to attend the great missionary 
meetings, and to witness the " Commemora- 
tion," as the gala-day of the University is called. 
These interesting events were prefaced by an- 
other, and, to us, as American Churchmen, an 
interesting festival — the fete day at Cuddesdon. 
In this lovely village, about eight miles from 
Oxford, the late Lord Bishop, the celebrated Dr. 



Oxford. 59 

Samuel Wilberforce, had established a Theolog- 
ical College, intended to take the place occupied 
by our American Theological schools, such as 
4k Griswold," in giving direct and most valuable 
preparation for Holy Orders. On the morning 
of the day following our arrival we drove out 
to this beautiful hamlet, which has grown up 
around the Bishop's Palace and the fine old Nor- 
man Church. The gathering was very large, 
numbering fully four hundred Bishops, Priests, 
Deacons and lay people of both sexes, and as 
the long procession of choristers, students and 
clergy in surplices moved two by two through 
the Palace grounds, under green trees and over 
the springing turf fringed and studded with 
flowers, the white robes and many colored aca- 
demic hoods of the clergy rustling and swaying 
in the wind, it was a spectacle long to be remem- 
bered. The church was thronged. The service, 
entirely choral, was charmingly rendered and 
participated in by the whole congregation. The 
sermon was delivered by the venerable Bishop 
of Fredericton, and at the close of the service 
and Sacrament, the Lord Bishop of Oxford j 
holding his Pastoral Staff in his left hand as he 
stood before the Altar, extended his right with 

5 



60 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

most impressive gesture to ^iveto the assembled 1 
worshippers the blessing of peace. 

The long procession then reformed, and with 
the familiar recessional, '"Onward Christian 
Soldiers, Marching as to War," proceeded to a 
large tent raised on the Palace grounds, where 
a bountiful collation had been spread, and where 
three hundred invited guests were soon busily at 
work caring for the needs of the inner man. 
The long tables were decked with flowers and 
were presided over by the Bishop of Oxford, Div 
Mackarness, who, with Mrs. Perry by his side, 
was surrounded by the Bishops and clergy, 
Lords and ladies present at the fete. After the 
luncheon came most spirited speeches, in which 
a happy and kind reference by his Lordship to 
the American Church was the occasion of the 
introduction to the assembly of the Bishop of 
Iowa, who made a speech in acknowledgment 
of the toast, adding, as was fitting, an expres- 
sion of the grateful memory in which the 
founder of Cuddesdon was held by the Ameri- 
can Church, of which he was the first historian. 
After further speeches the guests dispersed them- 
selves about the grounds or returned to Oxford. 
Our party, after visiting the Palace Chapel, 



Oxford, 6 1 

built by Bishop Wilberforce, and the exquisitely- 
decorated College Chapel, lingered for tea at the 
Palace, and then started for home. The day 
had been a busy one, but we were in time for a 
garden-party given by the Master of Wadham's 
College in the private gardens of the Master, 
which were tilled with distinguished guests 
including the Vice Chancellor and numerous 
"dons." Thence we hastened to a dinner par- 
ty given by the Rector of Exeter College, at 
which, aipong other notabilities, the late Amer- 
ican Minister, the Hon. Edwards Pierrepont, 
and his charming wife, were present. The din- 
ner, in the Rector's noble hall, was followed by 
an evening reception at which numbers gathered : 
and at length well worn out with the varied 
pleasures of our first day in Oxford, we reached 
our home at midnight, quite needing the rest 
and refreshment of sleep. 

Our first busy day at Oxford, with its odd 
comminglings of sermon and sacrament, speech- 
making and sight-seeing, garden-parties and re- 
ceptions, was but the type of other days follow- 
ing in quick succession, and filled to the full 
with that which could not fail to prove of deep- 
est interest to Churchmen and strangers. In 



62 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

our record of travel we do not propose to give 
an itinerary, but notice should at least be given 
of the great missionary meetings for which we 
had come to Oxford at this special time. In the 
afternoon of the day following our visit to Cud- 
desdon, the Sheldonian Theatre, with its two 
thousand sittings, was largely, if not fully, filled 
by a most interested and intelligent audience, 
presided over by the Lord Bishop of Oxford. 
In this splendid theatre, the result of the muni- 
ficent gifts of the Archbishop, whose name it 
bears, and for years the scene of all the public 
ceremonies of the University, there was held one 
of the grandest missionary meetings I have ever 
attended. The speeches on this occasion were 
delivered by American and Colonial Bishops 
and were received with marked attention and 
abundant applause. The speakers from the 
United States were the assistant Bishop of North 
Carolina, Dr. Lyman ; the Bishop of Ohio, Dr. 
Bedell, and the Bishop of Iowa. Among the 
speakers from other lands were the venerable 
Bishop of Fredericton, Dr. Medley, the Metro- 
politan of South Africa, Dr. Jones, and the 
Bishop of Columbo (Ceylon), Dr. Copleston. 
Thus from the various quarters of the earth. 



Oxford. 63 

testimony was borne to the abundant mission- 
ary zeal and success of the churches in com- 
munion with the Church of England. In the 
evening the Town Hall was crowded with an- 
other audience. The afternoon gathering was 
composed of the University dignitaries and stu- 
dents. In the exening instead of the " gowns- 
men " it was the "town" which was represented. 
Among the speakers were the Bishop of Penn- 
sylvania, Dr. Stevens ; the Bishop of the Falk- 
land Isles, Dr. Stirling, whose See comprises the 
southern portion of the South American conti- 
nent ; the Bishop of Bombay, Dr. Mylne ; and 
the Bishop of Ontario, Dr. Lewis. The speech- 
es were of an high order, and the interest was 
maintained to the close of the meeting, while 
substantial tokens of this interest were left on 
the plates held at the door as the large audience 
slowly dispersed. I may be pardoned in say- 
ing that the speeches of American Bishops 
received both public as well as private com- 
mendation, and many expressions of a grateful 
appreciation of their presence and labors were 
tendered them on every hand. 

It was our good fortune to be enabled to 
catch glimpses of the interior life of Oxford, 



64 So?ne Summer Days Abroad. 

which revealed many features of interest. All 
know something of the wonderful architectural 
beauties of the various College halls, and also 
of the "foundations" which yield to a certain 
number of distinguished scholars both homes 
and stipends for the prosecution of their studies, 
and the advancement of learning in the world. 
The "fellows" and professors are picked men 
who have won and hold their places by their at- 
tainments as scholars. Living in the various 
College halls, and engaged more or less in the 
work of instruction as well as study, they form 
a feature in the society and life of Oxford not 
to be overlooked. In the rooms of a "Fellow" 
of Merton we were most charmingly entertained. 
A number of Bishops, with other dignitaries in 
church and state, were present, and the elegance 
of the entertainment and the graceful hospital- 
ity of our host, the Rev. Rural Dean Freeling, 
made the occasion one full of enjoyment. From 
these charming rooms, and from a glimpse of 
the beautiful chapel where is a memorial of the 
martyred Missionary Bishop of Melanesia, Dr. 
Patteson, we proceeded to a public meeting in 
the council chamber in the interest of a per- 
manent memorial to the late Bishop of Lichfield, 



Oxford. 65 

Dr. Selwyn, so well known and loved in Amer- 
ica as well as in England, and at the very ends 
•of the earth. At this meeting the Bishop of 
Iowa bore willing testimony to the high char- 
acter and holy example of this great and gifted 
man. 

Days were spent in the examination of the 
halls and buildings so crowded with historic 
associations. At Lincoln, John Wesley lived in 
rooms still pointed out. At Pembroke, George 
Whitfield learned the lesson of evangelistic 
labors, which impelled him to minister to the 
New World as well as the Old. At Oriel, Keble 
studied and sung his holv verse. At St. John's, 
Laud lived and by his great generosity gained 
the title of second founder. At All Soul's, He- 
ber won repute as a scholar, poet and a Christian 
minister as well. And so one might go on bring- 
ing up many of the great names of England's 
history for a thousand years, which have been 
connected with one or another of these ancient 
seats of learning. Not only are the very rooms 
hallowed with associations, but the halls and 
libraries with their treasures of portraits, manu- 
scripts and books of the greatest variety are not 
to be overlooked In fact, the whole city of 



66 Some Sum?ner Days Abroad. 

Oxford offers attractions to the visitor not to be 
excelled wherever one may wander or whatever 
he may chance to see. 

In the midst of pleasures of all kinds, there 
came the rest and refreshment of Sunday. In 
this city of churches and colleges the Lord's day 
finds full observance. Services begin with the 
dawn and end only with the deepening of the 
late twilight into night. With us an early cele- 
bration of the Eucharist began the day in the 
parish church near by, which at an early hour 
was filled with eager worshippers. The service 
was choral, and most inspiring, and a large 
number of the faithful received the Sacrament 
of the Body and Blood of Christ. In the morn- 
ing, after the " Bidding Prayer" the University 
Sermon was preached in the Church of St. Mary 
the Virgin, by the Archbishop of York, Dr. 
Thompson. It was in this church that Cran- 
mer, after his recantation of the faith of Eng- 
land's Reformed Church, renewed his protest 
against Rome, and made his death avowal of 
belief in the doctrines of the primitive and apos- 
tolic days of Catholicity. The crowd enter 
through the beautiful Italian porch, surmounted 
by a benignant figure of the Blessed Virgin and 



Oxford. 67 

her Son, erected by Archbishop Laud, and made 
a special ground of accusation against him when 
the Puritans were thirsting for his blood. The 
sermon was thoughtful and admirably delivered. 
The preacher, the Primate of England, is well 
known to the scholarly world by his metaphys- 
ical works, while among theologians he has long 
held a prominent place, both as a writer and a 
reasoner. 

The Bishop of Iowa preached at St. Paul's 
to a crowded congregation. The service was 
choral, and all the tokens of respect so tully 
observed by English clergy and church officials, 
on occasions of the presence of their Dioces- 
an, were carried out in almost amusing detail. 
In the afternoon the Bishop catechized and 
addressed nearly a thousand children at the 
Church of St. Barnabas. This is a splendid 
church, erected by Mr. Thomas Combe, in the 
midst of the poorest district of Oxford, where 
the assiduous ministrations of the incumbent, 
the Rev. H. M. Noel, M. A., have resulted in 
gathering one of the largest congregations in the 
city. The services, which begin early in the 
morning and are as frequent as there are hours 
of holy time, are quite elaborate. 



6S So7iie Sui7imer Days Abroad. 

The children's service consisted of the u Lit- 
any of the Holy Child Jesus" which was sung 
by the thousand voices with most inspiring effect. 
The sea of little heads all turned toward the 
speaker, who had come from a far away world 
to talk to them, was a sight not to be forgotten ; 
and the splendor of the church and its decora- 
tions — for in England it is the churches_/br the 
poor which are made most attractive and gor- 
geous, together with the grand and uplifting 
music, made the service one of intense interest. 

It was " Show Sunday," and after evening 
prayer the "Broad Walk" leading from Christ 
Church was thronged in the twilight by all 
the notabilities brought by the commemoration 
to Oxford. From the balcony belonging to a 
room of one of the Christ Chinch "dons," we 
watched the surging tide of gownsmen, towns- 
folk, strangers and others, till at length the day 
was ended, and with it our experience of an 
Oxford Sunday. 

Parties, dinners, receptions, concerts and en- 
tertainments of every kind jostled each other 
in quick succession, or strove together as ri- 
vals for the pleasure of the visitors who already 
thronged the inns and lodging places, as well as 



Oxford. 69 

every hospitable Oxford home. At length the 
culmination of the week was reached, and the 
Sheldonian Theatre was filled in every part by 
the crowd assembled to witness the annual com- 
memoration festivities The floor of the theatre 
was assigned to the Masters of Arts. The semi- 
circle was occupied by ladies in full dress, while 
over all rose the galleries, one above the other, 
filled with the undergraduates and the ladies 
whom they had brought to see the spectacle, and 
whose presence did not in the least restrain the 
noisy demonstrations for which this occasion has 
long been famous. Seats were kept for the in- 
vited guests, and from any of these posts of 
observation one could see and hear to advantage 
all that transpired. As the theatre filled with 
the throng of ladies, " dons," and undergrad- 
uates, the students cheered and groaned alter- 
nately one and another of England's greatest 
men, varying their demonstrations by shouts for 
the ladies in " blue" or "pink," or "white," as 
any wearers of these colors came in view. Mr. 
Gladstone, especially unpopular in view of the 
present dislike of any apologists for Russia or 
the Eastern Christians, was hissed most vocifer- 
ously, while the Ministry, with Beaconsfield at 



Jo Some Summer Days Abroad. 

its head, received almost unlimited applause. 
At length after a wild scene of confusion, inter- 
rupted only by organ recitals which elsewhere 
would have claimed an attention they failed ut- 
terly to secure on this occasion, the great doors 
were thrown back, and the procession of heads 
of colleges, with the Vice Chancellor and those 
who were to receive honorary degrees, was 
ushered through the dense crowd amidst tremen- 
dous cheers. The bright robes of office and the 
many colored hoods of academic degrees worn 
on all "high days" of the University, gave a 
brilliant appearance to the scene, and after the 
u dons" and Bishops in their convocation dress 
were seated in the front seats of the semi-circle, 
and the opening prayers had been said, the con- 
ferring of " D. C. L." degrees was begun. The 
Marquis of Hartington was the first to receive 
this honor, and although Gladstone's successor 
as leader of the Opposition, he was welcomed 
with great applause. One of the ministry, Sir 
Michael Hicks-Beach, who followed with the 
air and bearing of a sprightly young man, was 
evidently a greater favorite. The late Ameri- 
can Minister, Edwards Pierrepont, was kindly 
received, although a few murmurs of " Bun- 



Oxford. 71 

combe" were heard from the gallery, and a whis- 
per of " Yankee Doodle" echoed on the air. 
But the favorite of the day was Lord Napier, of 
Magdala, and as the old soldier, his wrinkled 
face gleaming with good humor, and his breast 
covered with decorations received for honorable 
exploits, came forward to the Vice Chancel- 
lor's chair, the applause was deafening. The 
galleries shouted themselves hoarse, and the 
Oxford hats were waved wildly or thrown reck- 
lessly on high by men who felt that the soldier- 
ly qualities of the war-worn veteran, might be 
called into exercise for England's cause again. 
Following this scene of enthusiasm came prize 
essays in English, Latin and Greek, with the 
Creweian Oration by the Professor of Poetry, a 
post once filled by Keble, and then followed the 
Newdigate Poem which was listened to with 
little respect by men who failed to remember 
that it was Heber's poem on Palestine that first 
brought this poet and apostolic bishop into 
notice, and that since then other names now 
distinguished all over the world had here won 
their laurels at the outset of their careers. 

Following these exercises the newly-made 
Doctors of Civil Law with the " Lords and La- 



J2 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

dies" who were fortunate to receive a special 
invitation, lunched in the grand hall of All 
Souls' College, where Heber's face looked down 
upon us from the pictured walls, and Jeremy 
Taylor's portrait told of his connection with this 
time-honored foundation. The "lunch" was an 
ample one, and from it a few of us hastened to 
a fete in the beautiful gardens of St. John's 
College, under the windows of the temporary 
abode of Abp. Laud and Charles I., in the 
troublous times of the great rebellion. Here, 
music from the band of the Coldstream Guards 
was mingled with madrigals and glees from most 
excellent vocalists, while abundant refreshments 
were offered at every turn. Friday — our last 
day in Oxford — closed with a charming concert 
at Magdalen College, where the music was ex- 
quisite. The choristers of Magdalen are famed 
throughout England and took a prominent part 
in rendering a most brilliant selection of songs 
and glees. 

The hurry of packing up and the interchang- 
ing of farewells with most kind friends, preceded 
a few hours sleep and the final "good-bye" to 
Oxford — a farewell most reluctantly said. 



VII. 



LONDON. 

THE change was not wholly a pleasant one, 
from bright and beautiful Oxford, in its gala- 
dress, to smoky, foggy, dingy London, where 
the din of toil and traffic is unending and the 
tide of human life is ever surging through the 
narrow, crooked streets. But far above the tu- 
mult and strife of tongues, lifting the Cross 
where every eye looking for rest and refuge 
may see it, and towering in its magnificence 
over the pomp and glory of the world, beside, 
around, beneath it, rises S. Paul's, the Cathe- 



74 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

dial of the noblest city of Christendom. Thither 
our steps tended, and soon there had gathered 
to the one hundred and seventy-seventh anniver- 
sary of the Venerable Society for the Propaga- 
tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Bishops of 
the Church of Christ from all parts of the hab- 
itable world. The Society whose natal-day 
we had assembled to celebrate, is the oldest 
Missionary Society of the reformed churches. 
Founded in the year 1701, it was by this organ- 
ization that the care of the scattered churchmen, 
who had settled on our American shores in the 
colonies, where the Church was not established. 
was assumed up to the time of the Revolution. 
This care of the American Colonial Church was 
a labor of love, embracing colonists and aborigi- 
nees, and yielded fruit for all time in the plant- 
ing of countless churches, and the conversion 
of countless souls to Christ. Since this nursing 
care has been transferred to other fields, its oper- 
ations have extended all over the earth. With an 
income year by year of half a million, with more 
than a thousand missionary laborers in foreign 
lands, numbering its converts by tens and hun- 
dreds of thousands, reporting at the very time of 
our coming together more than twenty thousand 



London. 75 

applicants for Holy Baptism in a single mission 
field, this Venerable Society has won a name, 
and wields a power for good, worthy of its years 
and history. 

The procession formed in the apse of the 
Cathedral and moved through the cloistered way 
to the Choir. Vergers with their silver maces, 
and in their official robes, led the long array, 
followed by the surpliced choristers, nearly one 
hundred in number, with the clergy of the 
Cathedral chapter, each wearing the hood of 
his academic degree over his surplice. Then 
other vergers ushered in the procession of Bish- 
ops, — Missionary, Colonial, and Provincial 
Irish, Scotch, African, American, and English, 
— the long line being closed by the venerable 
and beloved Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. 
Archibald Campbell Tait, to whom as "Pri- 
mate of all England," ranking next to the blood 
royal, and taking precedence of the highest no- 
ble of the realm, all portions of the Anglican 
Communion yield deference and unfeigned re- 
spect as occupying the seat of S. Augustine, 
the Apostle of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and 
as the worthy head of the hierarchy of the 
Mother Chinch. 
6 



*]6 Some Summer Days Abroad, 

The vast space under the dome and in the 
nave and transepts assigned for the congrega- 
tion, was filled with worshippers who stood 
while the procession of choristers and clergy 
passed into their respective places. It was a 
striking sight. The immense organ was pour- 
ing forth a flood of melody. The bright sun- 
light streaming through the painted windows- 
and tinting with many hues the dome and gal- 
leries ; the sombre carvings and the sculptured 
busts or effigies, memorials of England's noble 
dead ; the sea of upturned faces, and the far- 
reaching vistas up and around, and on either 
side of this magnificent temple, all made up 
a scene of strange attraction, impossible to de- 
scribe, and yet never to be forgotten. Fifty 
Bishops, thrice that number of choristers and 
clergy, and fully five thousand people, with, 
in addition, many outside the space assigned 
to the worshippers and yet intent on all that was 
being done, formed a gathering which was at 
once unique and suggestive of the greatness of 
the Reformed Church of Christ, whose leaders 
and representatives had gathered here from all 
quarters of the globe. The service was choral 
and magnificently rendered, the whole assembly 



London* 77 

joining in the familiar notes of chants and hymns 
with one heart and one voice. The sermon was 
preached by the Lord Bishop of Ripon, who 
bears the honored name of Bickersteth. The 
offertory, collected with great difficulty in conse 
quence of the crowd, was nearly three thous- 
and dollars. The Bishops, following the Arch- 
bishop in the order of their consecration, offered 
their gifts, each kneeling in turn before the altar 
and placing the offering in the great silver-gilt 
Almsbasin, presented by the American Church 
in 1 87 1, to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The 
vast congregation rose at the presentation of 
the alms. The Holy Communion followed, the 
Archbishop being the Celebrant, with the Metro- 
politan of Sidney, Dr. Barker, as the Epistoler, 
and the Senior American Bishop present, Dr. 
Bedell, of Ohio, as the Gospeller. 

It was late when the crowd of the faithful 
had received the Sacrament of the Body and 
Blood of Christ, and then the clergy and the 
choristers retired, reversing their order of en- 
trance, while the congregation stood quietly till 
they had passed. It was a noble service, and 
many a one expressed the conviction that if 
the Lambeth Conference had only this single 



78 Sowr Siivimcr Days Abrocd. 

service, as the result of its assembling, the pro- 
gress of the reformed faith and its wonderful ex- 
tent! on throughout the world were attested by 
this gathering of Bishops from every quarter of 
the globe, far more forcibly than in any other 
possible way. Very sweetly and lovingly did 
the venerable Primate, suffering keenlv from the 
recent death of his only son, call around him the 
American Bishops to assure them of his special 
gratitude for the kind attentions they had ren- 
dered to this most estimable young clergyman, 
during his attendance upon the General Con- 
vention, held in Boston, in 1S77. And then, 
deeply impressed with the thoughts and feel- 
ings of the hour, we parted to be met at every 
turn with most courteous invitations, welcomes 
and good wishes, attesting the interest felt on 
every side in this second gathering of Bishops of 
the Anglican Communion, scattered throughout 
the world. As we left the Cathedral with a party 
of friends, who were to dine with Canon Greg- 
ory, our attention was called to the recent un- 
earthing of the foundation stones of old S. Paul's, 
which was destroyed in the great fire, and to 
the spot where stood the famous " S, Paul's 
Cross," at which were preached so many reform- 



London. 79 

ation sermons, and from which there went out 
such mighty influences in behalf of England's 
reformed and primitive faith. There have been 
three Cathedrals dedicated to S. Paul on this 
spot, and, if tradition is to be received, the first 
occupied the site of a heathen temple, clean"- ed 
and consecrated to Christ. At the Residentiary 
Houses in Amen Corner, built by Sir Christo- 
pher Wren, where we were kindly entertained 
by Canon Gregory, Henry Melville, the Golden 
Lecturer, lived and died. Outside were traces 
of the old Roman wall. At our right, Bonner 
burned the Bibles. On one side was the Sta- 
tioners' Hall, with its records of the publication 
of the first folio Shakespeare and the Paradise 
Lost. One could hardly think of eating or 
drinking with such surroundings, and on such a 
spot. And yet, where could one turn in London 
without evoking these vivid impressions of the 
past ! 

In the evening, at the Westminster Palace 
Hotel, there was a "conversazione," under the 
auspices of the venerable Society for the Prop- 
agation of the Gospel, at which* the American 
Bishops were publicly welcomed to London, and 
each in turn, was called upon for a brief address. 



So So?ne Summer Days Abroad. 

On the following day, missionary meetings of 
great interest were held at S. James's Hall, con- 
tinuing until late in the afternoon. In the even- 
ing the Bishop of Pennsylvania, Dr. Stevens, 
preached a noble sermon at Westminster Abbey 
on the work of the venerable Society in the colo- 
nial days of our own land ; thus closing a most 
interesting series of meetings and services, with 
fitting and most eloquent words from one who 
did not fail to do full justice to his theme, and 
to his country's and his Church's reputation. 
The morning found us hastening on our way 
to Canterbury — Canterbury pilgrims to the seat 
and shrine of Austin, first Archbishop to the 
Anglo-Saxons, through whom each Bishop of 
the Anglican communion traces his Episcopal 
descent, in lineal succession from the Apostles 
and the Lord Himself. 



VIIL 



CANTERBURY. 

IT was fitting that one of the preliminary gath- 
erings of the Conference should be held at 
Canterbury, where, on the spot consecrated by 
the labors of S. Austin, and near the site of the 
little palace of Ethelbert, his royal convert, now 
rises that magnificent Cathedral which marks 
the cradle-home of English Christianity. Here 
we met on S. Peter's day, assembling first, as 
seemed most appropriate, at the missionary Col- 
lege of S. Augustine, which occupies the site, 
and in part the ancient buildings, of the Abbey, 



82 Some Su?nmcr Days Abroad. 

founded by Ethelbert in the first years of the 
seventh Century. As the hour of service drew 
drew near, the green-sward of the college quad- 
rangle was crowded with Bishops from nearly 
every part of the world. India, China, Aus- 
tralia, New Zealand, North and South America, 
the West Indian and other islands of the sea, 
as well as the shores of the Mediterranean, 
were each and all represented by the chief 
pastors of the flock of Christ, each and all 
receiving loving welcome from their English 
brethren of one common faith, one common 
Lord. On this spot, where the faith of Christ 
and churchly culture first took root in the Anglo- 
Saxon race, there has in this generation, after 
years of disuse and desolation, arisen through 
the princely beneficence of a distinguished lay- 
man, A. J. B. Beresford Hope, D C. L., a school 
of the prophets which has sent forth heralds 
of the cross to continents and islands unknown 
to Austin and Ethelbert. The service in the 
College chapel was one of simple choral song, 
rendered sweetly and effectively by the students 
and the whole assembly. The sermon was by 
the Bishop of Western New York, whose name 
is a "household word" in the ;t old home/ 



Canterbury* 83 

where his ""Ballads" and "Impressions," as 
well as his other and weightier works, are known 
and valued as by us. The discourse from Heb. 
iii., 2 : " O Lord ; revive Thy work in the midst 
of the years," was one not to be described, for, 
rising to the occasion, it was full of impassioned 
eloquence such as no one save the poet-preach- 
er of the American Church could have said or 
sir g. The Eucharistic Office followed, at which 
the Archbishop of Canterbury was the cele- 
brant, giving to his brethren in the Apostolic 
office the sacred pledges of Christian fellowship 
and love. Impressive indeed was his solemnt 
sacramental hour, the bright lune sun shining 
in through the painted windows, and filling with 
all the hues of the "rainbow around the Throne" 
this consecrated spot, where every knee and 
every heart were bowed. Surely nowhere else 
could the services of this long-to-be-remembered 
feast-day have been more properly begun. Hav- 
ing "joined together in the holiest rite of our 
commo 1 Christianity," we went forth from this 
hour of Holy Communion, strengthened and 
prepared for the further observance of the day. 
After a luncheon in the common hall of S. 
Augustine's, between thirty and forty of the Bish- 



84 Some Summer Days Alroad. 

ops met in the Chapter House, and then with 
the long procession of surpliced choristers and 
clergy passed through the cloisters, and entered 
the nave of the Cathedral through ihe great west 
door, which is only opened on occasion c/ the 
Primate's presence. The spectacle was most 
impressive. As the long array of Bishops, cler- 
gy and singing men and boys entered the grand 
portal, the congregation rose, and the melody of 
Psalms exxii., exxxiii., and lxvii., — the " Lceta- 
his sum" the " Ecce qua?7i bonum" and the 
u Dcus misereatur" — filled aisles and nave and 
clerestory, up to the fretted roof, with the notes of 
choral song. Opening ranks, the Archbishop, 
accompanied by his chaplains, Registrar and 
Chancellor, in their striking robes of office, an J 
followed by the long train of Bishops, two by 
two, moved slowly through the choir, and up 
the lofty flight of marble steps to the Altar and 
" Becket's Crown," with the music of the pro- 
cessional " song of degrees. "' Accompanied to 
the steps of the Sanctuary by the Dean and 
Chapter, among whom my dear friend and host, 
Canon Robertson, the Church historian, stood 
conspicuous, the Primate took his seat in the 
u patriarchal chair" of stone, traditionally the 



Ca?itcrbury, 85 

seat of Augustine, and, if not actually coaeva 
with the first days of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, 
falling but little short of it, and forming one of 
the. most interesting relics of antiquity, where all 
around was hoar with age. The Metropolitan? 
and other Bisho; s passed to their places on 
either side of th? Altar, from which th.re was 
a most impressive view of the Sanctuary and 
Choir, and the crowd of revereni worshippers 
All was hushed as the Archbishop welcomed 
his "brothers, representatives of the Church 
throughout the world, engaged in spreading the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ wherever the sun shines." 
No such spectacle had been wi nessed during 
the twelve centuries and a half, which had 
rolled slowly by since the first missionary to 
our Anglo-Saxon fathers began his work foi 
Christ, on the spot where we were then assem 
bled. And from the seed here sown, the Chris- 
tianity here introduced, had sprung a hundred 
fold harvest from the field there represented, 
which was the world ! Alluding to these tokens 
of the Church's growth, the Archbishop referred 
to the monuments of a chequered history in 
Church and State, surrounding us, — " Canter 
bury pilgrims," — in our visit to this sacred 



86 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

shrine. On the one hand, the spot where Beck- 
et fell beneath the murderers' blows was plainly 
seen, and on the other rose the tomb of the Black 
Prince, surmounted by the tattered remains of 
his coat-armour, his helmet, his gauntlets and 
his empty scabbard. Felicitously alluding to 
the name of the Cathedral, u Christ Church, 
Canterbury," given at its solemn dedication by 
S. Austin, w ho thus " stamped it with the name 
of Christ, that the thought of the adorable 
Redeemer might be foremost therein," the Arch- 
bishop closed his earnest words with the ex- 
pression of his " special welcome" to his " breth- 
ren from across the Atlantic," whom he thanked 
with faltering voice and deep emotion, for cour- 
tesies extended to his only son, the Rev. Crau- 
ord Tait, M. A., in whose death all his earth 
ly hopes had been so lat ly crushed, adding 
the invocation, iC May God so unite us all in 
a bond of peace and love while life lasts, that 
we may all be one in Him and with Him eter- 
nally." 

The "Evensong" followed, and then, after 
the vast assembly had withdrawn, with Canon 
Robertson and Archdeacon Harrison as our 
guides, we passed through the Cathedral listen- 



Canterbury. 87 

ing to chapters of most momentous history, 
illustrated on the spot where their events tran- 
spired. There were brought to mind in swift 
succession, and most vividly, the days and deeds 
of Ethelbert and Bertha, Austin, and Lanfranc, 
Anselm and Stephen Langton, the Black Prince 
and Henry II. We traced the steps trod by 
Becket as he went slowly to his martyrdom. 
We stood in the crypt where the penitent King 
was scourged by the Bishop of London and 
the Benedictine monks. We noted the traces 
of the devotion of pilgrims at the shrine of S. 
Thomas of Canterbury, in stones worn away 
by kneeling devotees, and saw abundant evi- 
dences of the old-time splendor of the offerings 
at Becket's shrine during the period when, as 
the Primate had just described it, "a sort of 
semi-paganism was ruling within " these sacred 
walls. In the lib xxy the untiring Canon Rob- 
ertson showed us many a bibliographical rarity 
together with most interesting relics of the past, 
among which we noted with especial attention 
S. Dunstan's hand writing, and the crosses 
made by the pen of William the Conqueror 
and that of his queen, on the ancient charters of 
the Cathedral. Thence we passed into the gar- 



88 So?ne Summer Days Abroad. 

dens and on to green-sward of the Deanery 
grounds, shaded by the lofty minster-walls, 
where were gathered all the notabilities of the 
Cathedral City. The day was closed delight- 
fu.ly, after a missionary meeting in S. George's 
Hall, by a quiet reception at our host's, Can- 
on Robertson's, where, with our dear friend, 
Prebendary Bullock, (now, alas for us ! in 
Paradise), and his wife, the daughter of the 
late Dean Alford, we were most pleasantly en- 
tertained. 

On Sunday the Bishop of Iowa preached at 
S. Martin's, standing on the site, and having in 
its walls some of the undisturbed Roman ma- 
sonry, of the Church spoken of by the venerable 
Bede, as built before the Romans left the Island ; 
and being without dispute the chapel of Queen 
Bertha's devotions prior to Austin's coming, and 
her husband's conversion. How full of memo- 
ries was this scene and spot. We were wor- 
shipping on the very ground where the Creed 
had been said, and the Lord's Prayer repeated, 
and the words of Scripture and devotion, so 
familiar to all the Christian world to-day, had 
been in use since a time when those who had 
been taught and baptized by the Apostles them- 



Canterbury. 89 

selves, had not all fallen asleep. Plain and sim- 
ple as is this little Church, crowning a grassy 
slope with the resting places of many a pilgrim 
on the way to the heavenly Jerusalem on every 
side, it was rich in associations. It was this 
little British Church, outside the town, which 
must have been the first object to meet the eyes 
of S. Austin and his fellow missionaries, when 
the clergy and choristers with the tall, silver 
" cross of Jesus going on before," and the rude, 
painted panel borne aloft, on which our Saviour 
was depicted, moved in solemn procession from 
the coast to Canterbury, chanting " Gregor- 
ians" and " Litanies," with the words, "We 
beseech Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that 
Thy wrath and Thine anger may be removed 
from this city, and from Thy holy house. Alle- 
luia." Entering the city, they worshipped at S. 
Martin's, and here, without doubt, on the 2d of 
June, A. D. 597, Ethelbert was baptized, and 
the old font still standing at the Church's door 
is a monument of this event. On the follow- 
ing Christmas-day, so mightily grew the word of 
God and prevailed, ten thousand Saxons were 
baptized, — thus Gregory, Bishop of Rome, 
the friend and Datron of Austin, wrote to the 



90 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Patriarch of Alexandria. Soon the royal con- 
vert gave his palace and the site of an old 
Roman or British Church near-by, for the 
Archbishop's seat and the new Cathedral of 
Christ Church, — the Church of the Saviour, 
whose pictured effigy, borne on high, first told 
the Anglo-Saxons of the love of the Incarnate 
Son of God. 

Memories of these historic facts filled our 
mind as we stood in this holy place to tell of 
the progress of Christ's Church in our West- 
ern World. Here, as we preached Christ, we 
seemed united with the Church of the Apostl'e's 
days. — the one communion and fellowship of 
the Saints of the Most High. Here, minister- 
ing in holy things, we could look reverently into 
the past, and hopefully forward to the future 
when the Church of Christ thus planted, thus 
growing, should possess the world itself. 

In the afternoon our beloved uncle, the Bish- 
op of Pennsylvania, as representing the Amer- 
ican Church, preached in the Cathedral on 4i the 
Church of the Living God." This masterly 
discourse was listened to with marked attention. 
and brought out the truth fck Tnat the Caurch 
was the voice of the Living God, speaking, iov- 



Canterbury. 91 

ing, working among men." The day closed 
with pleasant and profitable re-unions of the 
Bishops, who lost no opportunity of conversing 
with each other of " the things pertaining to 
the Kingdom of God." The next morning, 
with the Bishop of Ohio and Mrs. Bedell, and 
the Bishop of Pennsylvania and Mrs. Stevens, 
our own party drove by invitation of the Dean 
of Canterbury, to Bishopsbourne, the church 
and vicarage of the Judicious Hooker. Here 
we walked beside the yew-hedge which he set 
out, stood reverently by the spot where his ashes 
rest in hope, and saw the entries in the parish 
register of the offices he performed. Here in 
the room where he penned the closing portion 
of his immortal " Ecclesiastical Polity," and 
where, wasted and worn, he received his last 
Sacrament, the Viaticum for the last journey, 
and in the little Church where he ministered so 
faithfully the Word and Sacraments, according 
to the use and rule of the Church he loved so 
well, we gratefully recalled the life and services 
of the greatest of the Anglican doctors. All 
around us were the rose-trees heavy with blos- 
soms, the clambering ivy, the graceful elms, and 
the sturdy oaks. Our pilgrimage was closed 

7 



92 So me Summer Days Abroad, 

with a lunch at a neighboring manor- hail, and 
a drive back to Canterbury in a pouring rain. 
Ere the day was over we were hastening 
to London and Lambeth, for the opening of 
Conference was & x pointed for the following 
morning. 



IX. 



LAMBETH. " 

THE Pa'ace at Lambeth is a large irregular 
pile of buildings, situated on the southern 
bank of the Thames, and is of various styles of 
architecture. It has been a Bishop's seat and 
home for over six hundred years, the foundation 
of the present palace having been laid by Arch- 
bishop Boniface about the year 1262. The en- 
trance is through an arched gateway, erected 
about A. D. 1490, and flanked by two square 
embattled towers of brick, commanding the pass- 
age into the outer court. Passing under the 



94 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

beautifully groined arch of the gateway, we 
noticed on the left a fine old wall covered with 
ivy and dividing the palace grounds from the 
Thames, and the favorite promenade known as 
the Bishop's walk. In front rose the Water 
Tower, beyond which were the frowning bat- 
tlements of the Lollard's Tower, so full of mem- 
ories and mementoes of martyr-deaths, and the 
even more painful lives of racked and tortured 
confessors of the truth. On the right were the 
great hall and palace with their corridors and 
chambers, the chapel and state departments, the 
galleries and offices, all making up a picturesque 
and imposing pile of buildings, which, in their 
varied architectural details, told of a continuous 
growth during the successive centuries since the 
twelfth, and are associated in history with many 
of the foremost names of English story, as well 
as with events which can never fade from mind. 
We gathered in the great dining hall, on the 
walls of which hang the portraits of the long 
line of prelates who before or subsequent to the 
reformation-period, have filled the See of Can- 
terbury. It was the meeting of men long known 
to each other by name, but now for the first time 
brought face to face. Nearly one hundred of 



Lambeth. 95 

the leaders of God's Sacramental host were there 
assembled from all parts of the world. Men who 
had hazarded their lives for the Lord Jesus ; 
men who had won a name as authors in well- 
nigh every department of literature ; men dis- 
tinguished by administrative qualities ; men of 
noble birth and antecedents ; men who had 
grown old in the service of the Master ; and men 
on whom holy hands had just been laid, set- 
ting them apart for this office and ministry, were 
here for the one coming together of th?ir lives. 
Two by two, robed in their Episcopal habits, 
and marshalled in the order of their consecra- 
tion, the Bishops entered the Chapel, which is 
one of the oldest portions of the Palace, and 
where the Altar furniture and decorations are 
the same as, or quite accurately replace, those 
of the time of Archbishop Laud. Here, where 
we knelt at the chancel-rail, lies the ashes of 
Matthew Parker, the first Archbishop of Can- 
terbury consecrated after the supremacy of the 
Roman See had been renounced ; and here, on 
Sunday, February 4th, A. D. 17S7, William 
White and Samuel Provoost were consecrated 
respectively Bishops of Pennsylvania and New 
York, giving to our American Church, from 



96 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

the Mother Church of England, the Apostolic 
Succession, which had been secured by the de- 
voted Seabury, of Connecticut, three years ear- 
lier, from the College of Scotch Bishops, in an 
tw upper room " at Aberdeen. Here, on the 19th 
of September, A. D. 1790, James Madison was 
consecrated Bishop of Virginia, thus giving us 
a full College of Bishops, of Anglican conse- 
cration, from which, united with the Scottish 
line, all our Episcopal orders are derived. 
After the hush of silent prayer, the Vent Crea- 
tor Sptrttus was sung as an introit, and then the 
Office of the Holy Communion was begun by 
the Bishop of London, Dr. Jackson, assisted by 
the Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Moberly, as Epis- 
toler, and the Bishop of Winchester, Dr. Har- 
old Browne, as Gospeller. The Archbishop 
of Canterbury was the Celebrant. The Arch- 
bishop of York was the preacher, choosing as 
his text, Galatians ii., 11 : " But when Peter was 
come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, 
because he was to be blamed." In this striking 
discourse the preacher, as his comment on the 
record of an apastolic quarrel, showed us that 
"the glory of God's great work lay in this — 
not that the powers, wishes, and passions of the 



Lambeth. 97 

actors were petrified into a lifeless uniformity, 
and the superseding life from heaven took their 
place ; but rather that using as His instruments 
men so weak and perverse, He built with them 
the Church of God." Reminding us "that the 
Church in the first age grew by the same prin- 
ciples as it grows by in the nineteenth ; that the 
very divisions amongst us have their counterparts 
in the age of the Apostles, and that our dis- 
putes, like theirs, may be but permitted strug- 
gles and aberrations of us who are acting out 
God's great commands, and that all the while 
He is making perfect the circle of His pur- 
pose, and accomplishing His Kingdom," — the 
preacher proceeded to tell us that "the Church 
has grown, as all things seem to grow, by the 
life within her striving to perfect itself amidst 
opposing forces." * * " Lo, even now the 
Church is growing, and God dwelling in her 
gives the increase. We seem in deadly peril : 
there is unbelief on one side, and on the other 
that deadening system which would hand over 
the conscience to the priest, and the priest to a 
mediawal theology, hostile to knowledge and in- 
capable of change. ' The waves of the sea are 
mighty, and rage horribly, but yet the Lord that 



98 Seme Summer Days Abroad. 

dwelleth on high is mightier.' * * Through 
strife, but not by strife, the Church has pass- 
ed upon her way. And we" — proceeded the 
preacher, addressing his right reverend breth- 
ren — "meeting a second time in Conference 
upon the interests of that branch of the Church, 
which springing from this little island, has so 
spread over the earth that the sun never sets 
upon her daughter Churches, we will never ad- 
mit a doubt that God is with us still. * * 
And whilst we are resolved to hold fast the faith 
committed to us, we may endeavour in one 
point to go beyond our fathers : the candour 
and the charity that spring from a firm trust in 
the truth, these should be our aim and special 
study." 

Tl us was the key-note given to the second 
Lambeth Conference, in the wise and temper- 
ate counsels of this admirable discourse, and we 
left the place where the Sacrament and sermon 
had each taught us of love and charity, with the 
needed preparation for our solemn and respon- 
sible work. Ere we laid aside our robes the 
somewhat amusing episode occurred of having 
a photograph, which by-the-bye was remark- 
ably successful, taken of the great assembly at 



Lambeth. 99 

the principal entrance of the Palace. Luncheon 
followed, and then the Bishops gathered in the 
hall of the Library, which occupies the site of 
the Great Hall, built by Boniface six hundred 
years ago. Re-edified by Archbishop Chichely, 
in the year i57o-'7i, and repaired by Arch- 
bishop Parker, it was despoiled and destroyed 
during the great Rebellion. The present state- 
ly edifice was erected after the Restoration by 
Archbishop Juxton, as nearly as possible in 
accordance with the style of the former struc 
ture. It is a lofty building of brick strength- 
ened with buttresses and ornamented with cor- 
nices and quoins of stone. From the centre ol 
the roof, which is upwards of fifty feet in height, 
rises a lantern, at the top of which are the arms 
of the archiepiscopal see, impaling those of Jux- 
ton, and surmounted by the mitre. Rows of 
lofty windows filled with the armorial bearings 
of successive Primates, interspersed with bits 
of rare old stained glass, light up the alcoves 
which are crowded with bibliographical treas- 
ures, MSS., illuminated missals, chronicles, 
chartularies and many of the htcunabula or 
earliest printed books of Gutenberg and Faust 
abroad, and Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson 



ioo Some Sum?ncr Days Abroad. 

■and others at home. Under the magnificent roof 
of carved oak and chestnut, and amidst this in- 
valuable collection of MSS. and printed books, 
preparations had been made for the sittings of 
the Conference. The Primate's seat was placed 
at the end of the library hall, while on either 
side were the Archbishops of York, Armagh 
and Dublin. In front were the Primates of 
Scotland, the Metropolitans of Canada, Sydney, 
Christ Church, (New Zealand), Capetown and 
Rupertsland, and the Senior Bishop of our own 
Church, who was first the Bishop of New York, 
Dr. Potter, and later the Bishop of Delaware, 
Dr. Lee. At the Secretaries' table were the 
Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, the learned 
Dr. Ellicott, whose exegetical works are so well 
known throughout the Church, and the Bishop 
•of Edinburgh, Dr. Cotterill, also favorably 
known as an author, while the Lay Secretary, 
Dr. Isambard Brunei, the Chancellor of the 
Diocese of Ely, with the short-hand reporters, 
occupied positions in the nearest alcove at the 
left. In front of the officers, and occupying two- 
thirds of the length of the library, which is be- 
tween ninety and a hundred feet in extent, with 
books of reference all around them, and tables 



Lambeth. 101 

for writing within easy access, sat the assembled 
Bishops, in all numbering thirty-five from Eng- 
land, nine from Ireland, seven from Scotland, 
nineteen of our own Church, including our col- 
ored brother of Haiti, ten from the British pos- 
sessions at the north of us, three from India, four 
from the West Indies, three from Australia, two 
from New Zealand, five from South Africa, two 
from South America, and one from the shores 
of the Mediterranean. Thus were we arranged, 
and in this historic hall we met day by day, 
nfter the daily prayers had been said in the 
Chapel, and discussed the various subjects pre- 
viously chosen for consideration. At the first 
business session, after prayers, the Archbishop 
delivered an impressive address, and the Con- 
ference was thus formally opened. 

The first subject assigned for consideration 
was "The best mode of maintaining Union 
among various Churches of the Anglican Com- 
munion." Two speakers, one of the English 
and the other of the American Church, had been 
designated by the Archbishop to open the dis- 
cussion and the Conference the Bishop of Win- 
chester, Dr. Harold Browne, being appointed to 
move the resolution, and the Bishop of Iowa to 



102 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

second the same. I had, in common with most 
of the American clergy of the present generation, 
studied the learned work of Dr. Harold Browne, 
or the XXXIX Articles, in my preparation for 
holy orders, and it was with no little hesitancy 
that I accepted the Primate's invitation to follow 
one so noted for scholarship and forensic power. 
But we met on the common ground of the Epis- 
copate, and the fullest attention was accorded to 
my remarks, the points of which were subse- 
quently incorporated in the report of the Com- 
mittee, of which the Bishop of Iowa was also 
appointed a member, as being " of great im- 
portance for the maintenance of union among 
the Churches of our Communion." The discus- 
sion continued fill the adjournment, when the 
subject-matter was formally referred to the com- 
mittee of which I have already spoken. Day 
after day of amicable and most interesting delib- 
eration followed. The main questions consid- 
ered were these, the first having already been 
named : — "Voluntary Boards of Arbitration for 
Churches for which such an arrangement may 
be applicable," comprising the subject of Courts 
of Appeal in Ecclesiastical cases, whether of dis- 
cipline or of disputed doctrine. "The relation 



Lambeth. 103 

to each other of Missionary Bishops, and of 
Missionaries of various branches of the Anglican 
Communion, acting - in the same country," com- 
prehending, among other matters, the question 
as to the adoption of a uniform Book of Com- 
mon Prayer in cases where, as in China and 
Japan, missionaries of the English and Amer- 
ican Churches are working side by side, formed 
the next subject under consideration. The mat- 
ter of conflicting jurisdiction where Bishops of 
the two communions, as in the countries re- 
ferred to, are sent by their respective Churches 
into the same territories, was also considered un- 
der this head, as was also the extent of Episco- 
pal control over clergy and catechists appointed 
and supported by voluntary organizations and 
societies; and the question of the appointment 
of Bishops for races. "The position of Anglican 
Chaplains and Chaplaincies on the continent of 
Europe and elsewhere," was also considered, 
comprising the questions arising as to the estab- 
lishment of chapels for foreign residents and 
travellers on the continent, whether English or 
American, and incidentally, the provision of 
Episcopal supervision for a reform movement 
in Spain and Portugal. The important subject 



104 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

of infidelity received grave consideration, the 
discussion under this head being undoubtedly 
the most brilliant of all. The position which the 
Anglican Church should assume toward the " Old 
Catholics," and also with respect to individual 
reformers on the continent, as well as towards 
converts from the Armenian and other Christian 
communities in the East seeking fellowship with 
us : the relations of the Church to the Moravians, 
together with certain matters referring to the 
West Indian dioceses, the Church in Haiti, the 
law of marriage and divorce as affected by local 
legislation, a Board of Reference for matters 
connected with Foreign Missions, and difficulties 
arising from the revival of obsolete forms of R't- 
ual, and from erroneous teaching on the subject 
of Confession, were all subjects of especial dis- 
cussion, and the results of all these meetings, 
so far as formulated in reports and approved by 
unanimous voice and vote, I have in my Epis- 
copal address brought before the clergy and laity 
of my diocese. The authoritative report of 
the Conference of the "Archbishops, Metro- 
politans, and other Bishops of the Holy Cath- 
olic Church, in full communion with the Church 
of England, one hundred in number, all exercis- 



Lambeth. 105 

ing superintendence over Dioceses, or lawfully 
commissioned to exercise Episcopal functions 
therein," closes with these words: 

"We do not claim to he lords over God's 
heritage, but we commend the results of this, our 
Conference, to the reason and conscience of our 
brethren, as enlightened by the Holy Spirit of 
God, praying that all throughout the world who 
call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
may be of one mind, may be united in one fel- 
lowship, may hold fast the Faith once delivered 
to the Saints, and worship their one Lord in the 
spirit of purity and love." 

At the close of the session on Friday, July 5th, 
the Conference took a recess for the purpose of 
giving time for the preparation of the reports of 
the various committees to which the subjects 
discussed on the floor of the Conference had 
been assigned. The committee of which I was 
a member met for three days at Farnham Castle, 
the Bishop of Winchester's palace, in Sussex, 
an ancient Episcopal castle, with terraced lawn, 
shadowed by cedars, skirting the stately park, 
and concealing in part the shattered keep. The 
interim before the re-assembling of the Confer- 
ence for its final session, which extended from 



106 So?ne Summer Days Abroad. 

the 22d to the 26th of July, inclusive, together 
with the unused hours of the days of meeting 
themselves, were largely given to social enter- 
tainments, in which the unbounded hospitality 
of our English hosts knew no stint. Breakfasts 
at Lord Cranbrooke's, to meet the Duke of 
Richmond and Gordon, Earl Beauchamp, and 
others ; at the Rt. Hon. J. E. Hubbard's, to 
meet the Archbishops and Bishops ; at Mr. Ber- 
esford Hope's, a brother-in-law of Lord Salis- 
bury, to meet several of the nobility and Bish- 
ops ; dinners at the Archbishops of Canterbury 
and Armagh, at the Bishops of London, Ely, 
and others, at the Lord Mayor's, in the cele- 
brated Egyptian Hall of the Mansion House, at 
the "Charterhouse," where we were most kindly 
entertained throughout the Conference by its 
learned master, Dr. Currey ; garden parties at 
Fulham and Kensington Palaces, at Mr. John 
Murray's, the celebrated publisher, at the Dean 
of Westminster, Dr. Stanley's; evenings at the 
Baroness Burdett Coutts', the Bishop of Glou- 
cester and Bristol, Dr. Ellicott's, and others ; 
conversaziones at the Westminster Palace Hotel 
and King's College, were among those I espe- 
cially recall. On Sundays the visiting Bishops 



Lambeth. 107 

were assigned to the various London Churches, 
and busy as I often am at home, I found myself 
again and again called upon for even more abun- 
dant services in Churches in London and its 
vicinity, and in several of the most noted Ca- 
thedrals. Thus passed the days of a month ever 
to be remembered. The end came at length, 
and after the expression of thanks to the Arch- 
bishop to whose most impartial and pains-taking 
presidency the Conference owed much of its un- 
animity, as well as the urbanity and decorum 
which characterized the proceedings from first to 
last, the members of the Second Lambeth Con- 
ference knelt together for the last time in the 
place of their deliberations for prayer and bene- 
diction, gratefully acknowledging the presence 
and the power of Him "who maketh men to be 
of one mind in an house." 

On the following day, Saturday, July 27th, 
the closing public services were held in S. Paul's 
Cathedral. It was a day long to be remembered. 
Nearly all of the hundred Bishops were pres- 
ent, meeting at the great west door of the Cathe- 
dral the Archbishop of Canterbury and his 
Chaplains, together with the Dean and Chap- 
ter of S. Paul's. The American Bishops, as 
8 



10S Some Slimmer Days Abroad. 

specially the guests of the English prelates, had 
from the first been assigned in the order of their 
consecration to the care and courtesy of their 
brethren of corresponding seniority in the Epis- 
copate, and in the long train of choristers, clergy 
and prelates, I walked, as on other occasions, 
with the Lord Bishop of Ely, Dr. Woodford* 
well known as the friend and biographer of 
Bishop Wilberforce. The scene was as pictur- 
esque as it was unprecedented. Passing through 
the thousands who had gathered to the service,, 
the procession was one which could never have 
been assembled before. It was a fitting close to 
a most momentous gathering. The sermon was 
preached by my beloved uncle, the Bishop of 
Pennsylvania, Dr. Stevens. The theme was 
the attractions of the cross. The text was from 
S. John, xii , 32: "And I, if I be lifted up 
from the earth, will draw all men unto Me."" 
An "Uplifted Christ" was held up before us as 
the remedy for evil in the heart, evils within the 
Church, evils in the world at large. This elo- 
quent discourse, which won the praise of all 
who listened to it, as its author had earlier won 
the hearts of all with whom he had been brought 
in contact, closed with these earnest words, af- 



Lambeth. 109 

ter a noble apostrophe to the Mother Church of 
England : 

"The next time, dear brethren, that we 
meet together, will be before the Great White 
Throne. Such a thought warns us that we must 
be watching, waiting, working, until the day of 
death comes ; and when that shall come, may we 
each, through faith in the atoning blood of an 
uplifted Jesus, pass in through the gate into the 
Celestial City, and hear from the lips of Him 
who sitteth upon the Throne, 'Well done, good 
and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of 
thy Lord.'" 

Matins had been earlier said, and the solemn 
act of united worship, in which all the members 
of the Conference were to unite ere parting for- 
ever, so far as this life is concerned, was pre- 
faced by the Te Dcum, sung as an introit, fol- 
lowing the grand processional hymn, familiar 
the world around, — "The Church's One Foun- 
dation is Jesus Christ, her Lord." Cold and 
dead indeed must have been the heart that did 
not thrill with emotion at such a sight, or beat 
impressively to the full rich melody of such a 
song. The service was simply the Eucharistic 
Office, rendered with all the accompaniments 



no Some Summer Days Abroad. 

of solemn state befitting the occasion and the 
place ; and the worship, in its deep impressive- 
ness, its absorbing devotion and simple majesty, 
seemed somewhat to image forth the adoration 
ever going on before the Throne above. 

After the sermon, the Archbishops and Bish- 
ops entered the Sanctuary, and the celebration of 
the Holy Communion began. The Primate and 
Metropolitans, with the senior Bishops of the 
Scottish and American Churches, administered 
the consecrated elements, and the number of the 
faithful who pressed forward to receive the sa- 
cred feast was so great that four consecrations 
were requisite ere all could be supplied. The 
service over, the great procession moved in re 
verse order to the apse of the Cathedral, where 
a few words were spoken by the Archbishop, 
who invoked the blessing ot God upon those 
about him, and in behalf of the Bishops of Eng- 
land, expressed their heartfelt thanks to the 
brethren who had come hither from foreign 
lands, and bade them, in the name of God, fare- 
well. Thus closed, with prayer and loving 
words, the Lambeth Conference of 1878. 



X. 



The Members of the Conference. 



ANY account of the Lambeth Conference would 
be confessedly imperfect without some no- 
tice of its personnel. The members of this 
body were, from their position, picked men, 
who from their antecedents and their very indi- 
viduality could not fail to impress profoundly 
one who was almost the youngest of them all. 

First and foremost in rank, as he was un- 
questionably in his presence and "many-sided- 
ness" of character, was the Primate of all Eng- 
land, Dr. Archibald Campbell Tait. Saddened 



H2 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

and softened by the bereavement which had so 
lately removed his only son from earth, there 
was seen in his every act and movement that 
gentle, affable, and courteous manner which re- 
vealed the catholicity of an earnest christian 
character. As the host of a hundred Bishops 
who recognized in him, if not a patriarchal dig- 
nity, a pre-eminence willingly and reverently ac- 
corded to the incumbent of the chair of S. Aus- 
tin of Canterbury, his evident sympathy with the 
toils and trials, the prejudices and preposessions, 
the varying experiences and processes of 
thought, of his brethren from all over the 
earth, won a universal admiration not unmin- 
gled with love. In personal appearance, there 
was a remarkable combination of the look and 
manner of the scholar and the courtier. Ever 
ready in debate, the master of a simple, unaf- 
fected, but logical and sustained rhetoric, dis- 
playing in the expression of his own convictions 
an evident unwillingness that his tastes and pre- 
judices should be deemed the measure of the 
Church's liberty, tolerant, fair and equitable in 
his address and rulings, and at the same time as- 
tute in feeling the temper of his auditors and 
brethren, and singularly adroit in the manage- 



The Members of the Conference. 113 

mentof one of the most independent and unim- 
pressible gatherings possible to conceive, the 
Archbishop's presidency was above praise. 
While avoiding all appearance of dictation, his 
presence and position were always felt ; and the 
harmony and unanimity of the Conference were 
largely due to his uniform affability and good 
temper and his masterly leadership. One was 
proud to recognize in the foremost man of the 
Anglican Episcopate a Bishop who felt that the 
dignity of his lawn was by no means comprom- 
ised by preaching in the open air to the crowds 
in Covent Garden market, or to the cabmen in 
a stable yard at Islington, or to the weavers of 
Bethnal Green. Kindly, thoughtful, consider- 
ate, this large-hearted prelate endeared himself 
to each of his American brethren, and im- 
pressed us profoundly with his eminent fitness 
for the trying though dignified position he has 
been chosen of God to fill. 

Beside him sat the Primate of England, the 
Archbishop of York, a man of noble bearing, 
formed for leadership, direct and daring in state- 
ment, impatient of contradiction, ready and often 
defiant in debate, and speaking with a lion- 
like voice and an energy of manner compelling 



114 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

attention and respect. As a metaphysician, a 
scholar, an author, a favorite at court, and a re- 
cognized power among all classes and condi- 
tions of men throughout his northern Archdio- 
cese, there was that in Dr. Thompson's pres- 
ence and speech which commanded the careful 
hearing of his brethren. Full of generous im 
pulses, and accessible to all ; dispensing a 
princely hospitality at Bishopthorpe during and 
after the Conference ; and doing good service as 
chairman of several committees while the ses- 
sion lasted, the Archbishop entered each day 
more and more heartily into the work assigned 
to us and constantly grew in the regard and res- 
pect of his brethren. 

Next to the Archbishop of York sat the Pri- 
mate of all Ireland, the Archbishop of Armagh, 
Dr. Marcus Gervais Beresford, a man of noble 
presence, as well as of noble lineage, who won 
all hearts by his graceful courtesy to all his 
brethren, and by the exercise of an open-handed 
hospitality at his London home. 

On the left of the Archbishop of Canterbury 
sat the well-known and widely-loved Archbishop 
of Dublin, Dr. Richard Chenevix Trench. 
Years and much physical suffering had left 



The Members of the Conference. 115 

their trace upon the face of the poet, author, 
theologian, and almost universal scholar. Rare- 
ly speaking, but constant in his devotion to the 
work of the Conference, it was a privilege to 
sit and see one whose name is held in such high 
esteem, and whose writings are read and studied 
all over the English-speaking world. 

Among the Archbishops and Metropolitans, 
the Primus of the Church of Scotland, Dr. Rob- 
ert Ed n, Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caith- 
ness, claimed the especial regard and respect of 
his brethren from America, who could not fail 
to remember that from his predecessor we in the 
Western World received in the person of the 
first Bishop of Connecticut, the Apostolic suc- 
cession, up to that time denied us by the Mother 
Church of England. Without being a skilled 
debater, Dr. Eden's words were characterized 
by great prudence, while his broad sympathy 
and generous bearing towards all branches of 
the Church Catholic, and his deep interest in, 
and appreciation of, the struggling reform-meas- 
ures on the continent of Europe undertaken by 
those who were seeking emancipation from the 
yoke of Rome, marked him as a leading mem- 
ber of the committees to which were entrusted 



u6 Some Su?n?ner Days Abroad. 

subjects of this nature, and indicated his attitude, 
since the close of the Conference, as the bold 
and ready friend of the celebrated Hyacinthe 
and the old Catholic Bishops in Germany and 
Switzerland. 

Among the Metropolitans of the Colonial 
Provinces, the attention of the American Bish- 
ops was especially directed to the genial Dr. 
Barker, of Sydney ; the devoted friend and suc- 
cessor of the Apostolic Selwyn, Dr. Harper, of 
Christ Church, New Zealand ; the well-known 
and beloved Dr. Oxenden, of Montreal, whose 
religious writings are found in almost every 
home, as they are certainly translated into almost 
every tongue of our common Christianity ; and 
the youthful and attractive Dr. William West 
Jones, the successor of the lion-hearted Dr. Rob- 
ert Gray, of Cape Town, South Africa. 

Among the Bishops of the Mother Church, 
facile fii'inceps, was the scholar and author, Dr. 
Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, a 
man of primitive piety and matchless erudition, 
whose valuable works in almost every depart- 
ment of literature reproduce in this nineteenth 
century the learning and devotion of Andrews, 
while his fearlessness and zeal are those of an 



The Members of the Conference. 117 

Athanasius. Inheriting an illustrious name ; in 
his youth, at Cambridge, sweeping the Univer- 
sity of its prizes and honors ; winning fame as a 
poet, a traveller, a commentator, and an acute 
observer of contemporary history and manners, 
lie has made the theological world his debtor for 
his exegetical, polemic and hortatory contribu- 
tions, while his personal magnetism has sur- 
rounded him with the most devoted of friends, 
and the wisest and most learned fellow workers. 

Of the learned Dr. Harold Browne, Bishop of 
Winchester, we have already spoken. His va- 
ried attainments, his readiness in discussion, 
and the ability and moderation with which he 
spoke, commanded universal respect. 

The Bishop of London, Dr. Jackson, well- 
known in this country through the wide circula- 
tion of his work on " Little Sins," was a con- 
stant attendant at the Conference, though by 
no means a frequent speaker. His Episcopate 
has been marked by firmness, wisdom, and mod- 
eration, in the midst of peculiar difficulties. At 
his palace at Fulham, a veritable "moated 
grange," we were hospitably entertained, as on 
occasion of an earlier visit to the "old home," 
and in the society of the Bishop's family we 



n8 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

renewed most pleasantly old memories as well as 
formed and deepened many which will never be 
effaced. In the library are still many faded and 
crumbling letters from the Colonial clergy of the 
past century, addressed from our American 
settlements to their Diocesan, the Bishop of Lon- 
don, whose See was held to include all the Brit- 
ish possessions abroad. Familiar as we were 
with these valuable historical papers, it was with 
no little interest that we saw not merely the 
transcripts which had long been in our hands, 
but the verba ipsissima, written by the noble 
men who laid broad and deep, under the favor- 
ing protection of Almighty God, the founda- 
tions of the American Church. 

The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, Dr. 
Ellicott, noted for his exegetical works, and con- 
spicuous where all were hospitable and kind for 
the charm of his entertainments, was one whose 
vast erudition and mastership of arguments and 
facts were specially noticeable. 

The eloquent Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. 
Magee, though speaking but seldom, redeemed 
the promise of his reputation as the most effect- 
ive and graceful orator on the bench of English 
Bishops. 



The Members of the Confereitce. 119 

We met the venerable Dr. Jacobson, Bishop 
of Chester, at Fulham Palace, and saw him 
again in his own home by the side of the river 
Dee. Years have passed since we had made 
ourselves familiar with this learned prelate's 
* scholarly edition of the Apostolic Fathers, and 
it was a singular pleasure to find in his genial 
presence and abundant fund of kindly humor 
that not only a grave and revered Bishop, but a 
consummate scholar, could be so agreeable and 
improving a companion and friend. 

The Bishop of Hereford, Dr. Atlay, we had 
heard years before at S. Paul's, and our pleasant 
acquaintance, increased by a most delightful visit 
to his ancient palace on the banks of the Wye, 
where we spent a Sunday with the Bishop, in 
the midst of his charming family, is among our 
most cherished recollections of the Conference. 
Dr. Atlay is a man of noble bearing, a vigorous 
speaker, and. in common with his lovely wife, is 
deeply interested in everything relating to the 
Church in America. 

Lord Arthur Charles Hervey, the Bishop of 
Bath and Wells, is a brother of Lord Charles A. 
Hervey, who had been our host when in Eng- 
land for the first time. We visited the palace 



120 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

of this excellent, judicious and beloved prelate, 
which is interesting to the antiquarian as retain- 
ing the moat, and draw-bridge, the crenelated 
walls, and all the accessories of a mediaeval 
Castle, while to the Churchman it is specially 
endeared by its associations with the Apostolic 
Bishop Ken. The traditional spot where this 
prelate of primitive piety composed his Morning 
and Evening Hymns is pointed out in a shady 
nook alongside the frowning battlements 
Lord Hervey and his wife, Lady Jane Hervey, 
entertained the Bishops at their beautiful home 
with most graceful hospitality. 

The most beautiful and architecturally com- 
plete of all the Cathedrals of England is Salis- 
bury, rising in its stately perfection from a most 
perfect bit of greensward, which with its sur- 
roundings of Palace, Deanery, and the other 
official residences, forms the u close." Here we 
met and were charmingly entertained by Bishop 
and Mrs. Moberly in their home, among the 
clambering vines and roses. The Bishop, for 
many years the Head Master of William of Wyke- 
ham's Winchester School, and widely known in. 
America as the author of some very valuable 
theological works, was among the most influen- 



The Members of the Conference, 121 

tial of the members of the Conference. Con- 
spicuous for his learning, his prudence, his 
wise judgment, combined with a most persua- 
sive oratory, he displayed great gentleness and 
sweetness of manner, winning all hearts. Ven- 
erable in his appearance, he is still vigorous in 
the discharge ol" his episcopal duties, while his 
active and acute mind has known no loss of its 
power or grasp of thought. 

Among the Scotch prelates, the Bishop of S. 
Andrew's, Dr. Wordsworth, the brother of the 
Bishop of Lincoln ; the Bishop of Edinburgh, 
Dr. Cotterill, one of the Secretaries of the Con- 
ference, and the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, 
Dr. Mackarness, brother of the Bishop of Ox- 
ford, were specially noticeable. Of the Irish 
Bishops, the eloquent Dr. Alexander, Bishop of 
Derry ; the learned Dr. Fitzgerald, Bishop of 
Killaloe; and our old friend and associate at 
the Old Catholic Conference at Bonn in 1S75, 
Lord Plunkett, Bishop of Meath, were the most 
prominent. 

Very dear to all the American Bishops was 
Dr. Medley, Bishop of Fredericton, and, since 
the Conference, the successor of Dr. Oxenden, 
as Metropolitan of the British North American 



122 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Dioceses. Well known to us from his occa- 
sional presence at our synodical gatherings, he 
was evidently the foremost among the Colonial 
Bishops, and his incisive arguments, his fearless 
expression of opinion, and his far-seeing and wise 
counsel were always listened to with profound 
respect. Our old friends, the Bishops of Onta- 
rio, Huron and Niagara, were occasional speak- 
ers and contributed not a little to the interest of 
the Conference. 

Of the younger Bishops, Dr. Copleston, of 
Colombo ; Dr. Macrorie, of Maritzburgh ; Dr. 
Webb, of Bloemfontein ; Dr. Mylne, of Bom- 
bay ; and Dr. Mitchinson, of Barbadoes, were 
each men of mark. The Bishop of Colombo 
had entered upon his work on the island of 
Ceylon with great energy, and all the devotion 
of a Heber or a Selwyn. Dr. Macrorie was 
filling with singular prudence the post left va- 
cant by the deposed Colenso. Dr. Webb was 
conducting a missionary work of great promise 
on principles of the primitive age. Dr. Mylne, 
perhaps the most "advanced" of any of the 
Bishops present, was distinguished for his learn- 
ing and absorbing devotion to his work ; while 
Dr. Mitchinson was able to interest the Confer- 



The Members of the Conference. 1 23 

ence in several matters which at first sight 
seemed of diocesan importance only, but which 
were found to involve principles of general mo- 
ment. The Bishop of the Falkland Islands, Dr. 
Sterling, an amiable and excellent man, of 
agreeable manners and most attractive presence, 
was an object of no little interest to all as hav- 
ing in charge the farthest portions of South 
America ; while the scholarly and agreeable 
Bishop of Gibraltar, Dr. Sandford, with whom 
we had travelled when on the Continent a few 
years before, was a competent and always in 
teresting witness of the remarkable movements 
in the direction of a return to Catholicity which 
have transpired within the last few years in 
Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy. The 
Bishop of Rupertsland, Dr. Machray, whose 
jurisdiction of almost illimitable space at the far 
North has become a Metropolitical See, was also 
a Bishop whose devotion to the work of Christ 
had led him to undertake a work requiring fear- 
ful exposure and vast powers of endurance, 
willingly entered upon for the sake of the Lord 
Jesus. 

Of the American Bishops, it is only necessary 
to say that the Bishops of Ohio, Pennsylvania, 
9 



124 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

and Western New York exercised the widest in- 
fluence and received the most abundant tokens 
of respect. Bishop Bedell's graceful and genial 
manner, the broad Catholicity of his views, the 
cogent and impressive speeches made on the 
floor of the Conference, and the finished and elo- 
quent sermons preached in cathedrals and 
churches in various places, won for him great 
praise. Bishop Stevens's admirable discourses 
at Westminster Abbey, at Canterbury, at S. 
Paul's, at S. Saviour's, Leeds, and elsewhere, 
his readiness in debate and the post of honor 
accorded him as the preacher of the closing 
discourse at the Conference, proved him to be a 
central figure among his brethren. Bishop 
Cleveland Coxe's name in England was as it 
has long been, "familiar as a household 
word." In the Conference he spoke rarely, but 
always w T ith power. Singularly happy in his 
abundant historical and classical allusions ; dis- 
playing a minute acquaintance with the men and 
measures, the controversies and problems of the 
times ; mingling even with his most prosaic ut- 
terances the charm of his imagination and the 
rythmic flow of numbers, his public efforts at- 
tracted admiring crowds, while in social circles, 



The Members of the Conference 125 

or on the public days of our visits to Canterbury, 
Lincoln, and elsewhere, he lost none of his old 
reputation as poet, preacher and prelate, in each 
capacity well deserving the praise of his breth- 
ren of the old world and the new. 

The wise and cautious Bishop Lee, of Dela- 
ware, as w T ell as his dignified and widely-known 
brother of New York, Dr. Potter, received each 
a fitting meed of reverence, as their years and 
wisdom claimed. The late Bishop of Louisiana, 
Dr. Wilmer, was from his originality and many 
genial qualities, a universal favorite. The Bish- 
ops of Pittsburgh and Long Island spoke with 
force and elegance and were listened to with at- 
tention and respect. The Bishop of Albany re- 
vived in many minds memories of his father, the 
Bishop of New Jersey, whose visit to England 
left impressions which will not soon die out. 
The Bishops of Nebraska, Central Pennsylvania, 
and the Assistant Bishop of North Carolina were 
less frequently heard on the floor of the Confer- 
ence, but made favorable impressions by their 
public utterances. The Bishops of Missouri, 
New Jersey, Wisconsin and Colorado took little 
or no part in the Conference debates, but were 
by no means uninterested or unimportant mem- 



126 So?ne Summer Days Abroad. 

bers of the Body, and in pulpits and on plat- 
forms were always received with favor. The 
Bishop of Shanghai attracted general attention 
and commanded wide respect from his vast eru- 
dition, while the Bishop of Haiti, Dr. Holly, 
from the fact that he alone represented his race 
in the Conference, as well as on account of his 
acknowledged abilities, received marked notice 
and every token of interest and regard. 

From these brief and sketchy outlines of my 
own impressions of my brethren with whom I 
sat during the memorable Lambeth meeting, I 
would turn to other matters incidentally con- 
nected with my English visit and thus forming 
a part of my personal narrative. 



XI. 



The Charterhouse. 



OUR London home during the Conference was 
at the Charterhouse, where we were enter- 
tained as guests of the Master of this noted founda- 
tion. Here in the midst of the city's din, — with 
Smithfield Markets just beyond the walls ; with 
the Bank and Post Office near at hand, and S. 
Paul's, seen from every point, towering over the 
confused and crowded streets, in which the busi- 
ness of the world is ever going on, — green fields 
abound and shady trees and flowers of every 
hue attract the eye, while the old-time architec- 



128 Some Su?nmer Days Abroad. 

ture of the long rambling halls and cloisters, and 
the quiet walks of the foundationers, and the am- 
ple play-grounds of the Carthusian boys, tell of 
an age long past and of events connecting us with 
the men and scenes of many centuries. Here, 
where now a noble charitable foundation of the 
Reformed Church of England exists, and has ex- 
isted for several hundred years, once stood a 
Carthusian monastery dating its origin back to 
the fourteenth century. 

The legend tells us that at the funeral of a cel- 
ebrated theologian of Paris, who died in the 
year 1082 in the odor of sanctity, the obsequies 
were strangely and solemnly interrupted. As 
the service was going on, the corpse three times 
lifted its head from the bier and declared, first, 
that the dead saint had been arraigned before the 
bar of Heaven, then that he had been tried for 
the deeds done in the body, and finally, that he 
had been condemned by the just judgment of God. 
Influenced by this strange revelation of the un- 
seen world, the Chancellor of the Cathedral of 
Reims, Bruno, a native of Cologne, withdrew 
from all secular labors and devoted his life to 
the strictest asceticism. Six personal friends 
accompanied him in his retreat from the world, 



The Charterhouse. 129 

and soon, among the mountains in Dauphine, 
in a spot difficult of approach and nestled among 
the clouds, La Grande Chartreuse, so styled 
from the hills which had been named Chaire 
Dicu (in modern French Chaise Dieu) arose. 
The example of Bruno was followed all over 
Europe, and within less than a hundred years 
from the institution of this religious order it had 
extended into England. In the middle of the 
fourteenth century, A. D. 1345-49, a terrible 
plague devastated Asia and Europe and caused 
the death of half of the inhabitants of England. 
For the purpose of providing a place for the 
burial of the dead, the Bishop of London pur- 
chased a field of three acres outside the city 
limits, and known as "No Man's Land," where 
he erected a chapel in which masses were to be 
said for the repose of those buried about its walls. 
This provision proving insufficient, Sir Waiter 
de Manny, Lord of Manny in the province of 
Hainault, purchased thirteen acres and a rod of 
land, outside the bar of West Smithfield, from 
the Master and brethren of S. Bartholomew's 
Hospital, and in this "God's Acre" more than' 
fifty thousand dead were buried. The founder 
of this charity was a Flemish nobleman who 



130 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

had accompanied Queen Philippa of Hainault 
to England, on her marriage with King Edward 
III. His deeds of martial prowess are recorded 
in the pages of that most delightful chronicler 
of knightly days, Froissart. The King recog- 
nizing his follower's merit, made the brave sol- 
dier a peer of the realm, and a Privy Councillor, 
as well as a Knight of the Order of the Garter. 
He was a good Christian as well as a good sol- 
dier, and, subsequently to the devotion of the 
"Spittle Croft," erected in 1371 a Carthusian 
monastery which was completed the following 
year. At the close of 1372 the good knight died 
and was buried in the middle of the choir of the 
monastery chapel. Froissart tells us of the 
funeral, which was attended by the King and his 
children, together with the Nobles and Bishops 
of England. An alabaster tomb, no trace of 
which exists, marked the resting-place of the 
worthy Knight ; but his noblest memorial was the 
religious house he had founded and endowed, 
and from which there flowed for many years a 
ceaseless stream of works of charity and devo- 
tion. While many a religious house was in the 
laxity of the times sadly diverted from its pious 
intent, no word of censure ever assailed the fair 



The Charterhouse. 131 

fame of the Prior or brethren of Charterhouse. 
On this holy ground the famed Sir Thomas 
More, and the celebrated Dean Colet found a 
temporary retreat from the cares and confu- 
sions of the world outside. 

It was left for Henry VIII., in his spoliation 
of the monastic foundations all over England, to 
sacrifice, not to any religions zeal or political 
forethought, but to his personal greed, this ven- 
erable foundation : and on the 4th of May, A. 
D- 1535, the Prior of Charterhouse, John 
Houghton, with several of the Carthusian breth- 
ren, "ready to suffer rather than disobey the 
Church," were hanged, drawn and quartered, 
the Prior's arm being placed over the entrance 
gate of the grounds, in accordance with the bar- 
barous spirit of the times. 

There are few more graphic or more touch- 
ing narratives to be found in Mr. Froude's His- 
tory of England than the description he gives of 
the last service of the Carthusians in the chapel 
of the Charterhouse ; and read upon the spot, 
with the surroundings of the very stones which 
heard these good men's prayers, and witnessed 
their heroic devotion to their faith, the vivid re- 
cital of the historian became almost painful in 



132 Some Sum?ner Days Abroad. 

its impression upon the mind. In the confisca- 
tion of the convent grounds, which followed the 
execution of a large number of the Monks and 
the desolation of the house, the property was 
given by the King to Lord Edward North, and 
on the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the 
throne, the Queen resided for some days at 
Charterhouse, spending here the eventful night 
preceding her coronation. During Queen Eliz- 
abeth's reign the property was purchased by the 
Duke of Norfolk, who resided in this noble 
house till he was committed to the Tower in 
1^69 for his projected marriage with Mary, 
Queen of Scots. The following year he was re- 
leased and permitted to reside at his palace in 
the Charterhouse, where for two years he 
amused himself in adding to the splendor of the 
building by the enlargement of the great hall 
and the enrichment of the structure by the addi- 
tion of magnificent wainscotting, covered stair- 
ways and galleries, and noble fire-places of most 
intricate adornment, all of which bearing his 
cypher or crest, are still among the glories of 
this ancient palace-home. But unfortunately 
the charms of the building did not keep the 
Duke from his intrigues in behalf of the beauti- 
ful Queen of the Scots, and the discovery of 



The Charterhouse. 133 

some seditious papers under the tiles of the roof 
of the Charterhouse, and beneath the matting at 
the vestibule of the Duke's bed-chamber, caused 
this unfortunate nobleman to lose his head. 

On the accession of James, five hundred of 
the citizens of London, in velvet gowns and 
wearing chains of gold, with the Lord Mayor 
and Aldermen, met the King at Highgate, on 
his approach to the city, on the 7th of May, 
1603, and conducted him in grand procession to 
Charterhouse, where he kept his court for four 
days, making more than eighty knights ; while 
he shortly after created his host, the son of the 
Duke who had aspired to his royal mother's 
hand. Earl of Suffolk. From this nobleman, 
Thomas Sutton, a wealthy layman of the Church 
of England, at the instigation of Dr. Joseph Hall, 
afterward Bishop of Norwich, purchased the 
property for the purpose of founding a noble 
charity for young and old. Thirteen thousand 
pounds sterling was the sum paid for the Char- 
terhouse, which was endowed with a princely 
revenue, and in spite of the covetous designs of 
King James I. and the attempt of Lord Bacon 
to alienate the property, which, to his credit be 
it recorded, Sir Edward Coke bravely resisted, 
the pious designs of the founder were realized. 



[34 Some Summer Days Alroad. 

"And thus," to quote an old chronicler of the 
Charterhouse, "the soil which of ancient time 
was given by Sir Walter de Manny, a knight 
and soldier, for the sepulchre of poor men when 
they were dead, is now by Thomas Sutton, an 
esquire and a soldier, converted and consecrated 
to the sustenance of the poor and impotent 
whilst they live." The foundation provides a 
school for the young and a home for aged men 
of character and reputation. The school has 
long been famous. Here the Poet, Richard 
Crashaw, and the theologian, Dr. Isaac Barrow, 
were boys at school. Here Richard Steele and 
Joseph Addison, the famous John Wesley and 
Sir William Blackstone, Grote and Thirl wall, 
Julius Hare and Sir Henry Havelock, Arch- 
bishop Manners Sutton, John Leech, the carica- 
turist, and William Makepeace Thackeray* were 
educated. Thackeray was a Carthusian, and no 
one who has read "The Newcomes " can forget 
the touching description this great writer gives 
of the "Grey Friars" school of his boyhood, 
and the kindly refuge where the Colonel ends his 
career. 

The "Master" of the Charterhouse is the 
Rev. George Currey, D.D., of S. John's College, 
Cambridge, the author of a commentary on the 



The Charterhouse. 135 

Book of Ecclesiastes, and a scholar of distin 
guished ability and renown. Under hisefficien 
management the Charterhouse has proved a 
most useful and noble foundation, as it had been 
in the past. Eighty " foundationers" have here 
their home and ample support, till at the call of 
death the " adsum " is heard as the reply ; while 
the great school of five hundred pupils, now re- 
moved to Godalming, outside of London, under 
the charge of the Rev. Dr. Haig-Brown, is even 
more flourishing than when in the heart of Lon- 
don. As of old, it is doing the work the 
founder desired, yielding results to the glory of 
God and the good of the Church of Christ. 

1 1 this noble home, with its wonderful carv- 
ings, its splendid paintings, its walls hung wit^ 
tapestry, its quaint courts and corridors, its 
cloistered walks and green squares, its ancient 
chapel and its inefiacable historical associations, 
we were welcomed with the ample and unspar- 
ing hospitality for which the English are noted. 
From the moment we crossed the threshold of 
the "Master's Lodge" every effort was made by 
each member of the dear household where we 
were so happily domiciled to make us feel that 
we were indeed at home. To say more would 
be unnecessary. 



XII. 



The Lord Mayor's Dinner. 



AMONG the noteworthy incidents connected 
with our "Canterbury Pilgrimage," as the 
Bishop of Ohio felicitously styled our journey 
to and from the See of S. Austin, was the Lord 
Mayor's dinner to the Archbishops and Bishops 
from all quarters of the globe who made up the 
Second Lambeth Conference. This gathering 
of prelates in unwonted numbers at a civic feast 
gove to the occasion so often described, a nov- 
elty rendering it worthy of record. 



The Lord Mayor's Dinner. 137 

The Mansion house, a noble specimen of the 
style of architecture prevailing in the clays of 
good Queen Anne, stands in the very heart of 
the "city." By day it is almost unapproachable 
from its surroundings of vehicles and the rest- 
less, busy throng of passers-by, but when the 
din of traffic and pleasure has gone down with 
the sun, it is well-nigh deserted in its stately 
grandeur. Within this palatial home of the 
highest civic dignitary of London have occurred 
those well-known feasts of which every one has 
heard even from childhood, and which have 
been described by none more happily than by 
our own Hawthorne. It was not without a 
pleasant reminding of eariy reading and earlier 
nursery lore that the Bishop of Iowa and Mrs. 
Perry received and accepted in due form the 
polite invitation of the Lord Mayor and the Lord 
Mayoress to dine at the Mansion House to meet 
the Archbishops and Bishops. One formidable 
difficulty stared at least one of the American 
Bishops in the face. It was the requirement of 
" full dress" in the corner of the immense card 
of invitation. What was the "full dress" of an 
American Bishop? Surely not the 'broidered" 
purple coat of cut-a-way style, reproducing the 



138 So?ne Su?nmer Days Abroad. 

fashion of two centuries since, with the silk 
stockings and knee-breeches with silver buckles, 
and "pumps" with buckles to correspond, with- 
out which no English Bishop ever appears at 
dinner ! One's limbs could not be thus exposed 
to unwonted and quite undesirable publicity 
with only the flimsy protection of the black silk 
stockings with which our grandfathers of all 
ranks appeared when in "full dress." And so 
the bold resolve was taken, in spite of " Mrs. 
Grundy," to appear in the dress we should have 
worn at home on a similar occasion, were such 
an "occasion" possible in Republican Amer- 
ica. This point settled — and we frankly say that 
it occasioned not a little discussion among the 
American Bishops in attendance upon the Con- 
ference — the rest was comparatively easy. 
When we were "put down" by the carriage 
of our kind host, Dr. Currey, who accompanied 
us, at the Mansion House, and had passed up 
the long ascent of the grand staircase, — "the 
Master of the Charterhouse, the Bishop of Iowa 
and Mrs. Perry," being announced in most sten- 
torian manner at different points of our progress 
— at length the splendid reception hall, adorned 
with carved ceilings and walls, with splendid 



The Lord Mayor's Ditiner. 139 

marble fire-places at either end, was reached 
through a crowd of officials of the household, 
arrayed in scarlet coats with silver epaulets, and 
footmen in the city livery of blue and buff, bediz- 
ened with lace and embroidery. At one end of 
the spacious hall, supported on either side by 
the mace bearer and sword bearer in their old- 
time costumes at once picturesque and amusing, 
stood the Lord Mayor, gorgeously arrayed in his 
official robes, with the massive gold collar about 
his neck, betokening his civic dignity. The 
Lady Mayoress, Mrs. Owden, a kindly and fair- 
faced representative of her sex, stood beside her 
husband, richly dressed and evidently enjoying 
her position. The simple presentation over, the 
next matter of interest was to watch the coming 
of the many invited guests, upwards of three 
hundred and twenty in all. A folio page printed 
in gold and colors was in everyone's hands, giv- 
ing the names of all who were present, and show- 
ing, by reference to a diagram, the place of each 
at the long tables, thus affording the means of 
identifying each one's neighbors at the feast. 
The civic officers, the aldermen and sheriffs, 
were in velvet suits, those of a past age, and 
striking in their quaintness and splendor. The 

10 



140 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

clergy wore their academic gowns and cassocks 
with bands. The nobility present wore their 
"orders" and decorations. Military and naval 
guests were in full uniform. The ladies were 
magnificently attired. The dress required at the 
court receptions and "drawing rooms" was 
largely adopted, and as name after name was 
announced and the guests passed through the 
long line of those who had already been pre- 
sented, the scene became one of great interest. 
Among the numbers present, nearly four score 
were Archbishops, Metropolitans and Bishops, 
in whose special honor the feast was given. 
Music filled up the intervals between the arri- 
vals of the distinguished guests, and when the 
moment came for the movement to the "Egyp- 
tian Hall," where the state dinners are held, it 
was surprising that in so large a gathering there 
should be no confusion, no disorder, but a quiet 
assigrment of each to his designated place — all 
being ready in a moment for the "grace" said 
by the Lord Mayor's chaplai . The "menu, ,r 
which was exquisitely printed and thoroughly 
artistic in its design and execution, was before 
us, and the stately feast was soon begun. It 
was an imposing sight. The immense hall was 



The Lord Mayor's Dinner. 141 

flooded with light. The lofty ceiling was sup- 
ported on rich columns of polished marble. 
Paintings and mirrors covered the walls, and the 
gleam of the city's gold and silver plate displayed 
behind the Lord Mayor's elevated seat was re- 
flected on every side. Soft music, now from an 
orchestra of skilled performers, and now from a 
single harp exquisitely played, interrupted the 
clash of dishes and the hum of conversation. 
The long lines of tables, the one occupied by 
the Lord Mayor, Archbishops, Metropolitans, 
and their wives, extending along the length of the 
room, and eight tables placed longitudinally 
across the breadth of the hall, were completely 
filled, and the numerous attendants in the quaint 
livery of the olden-time were busily occupied in 
the duties of the hour. The grand repast over 
and the clatter of service hushed, " thanks" were 
returned by the chaplain and the " feast of rea- 
son and the flow of soul" began. The " toast- 
master," from his position beside the Lord May- 
or's chair of state, at first in most magniloquent 
style coupling the names and titles of the Lord 
Mayor and each Bishop present, expressed the 
gratification of the host at the success of the oc- 
casion. It would be impossible to convey an 



142 Some Sum?ner Days Abroad. 

idea of the struggle of this worthy man with the 
titles of the American Bishops. Iowa was 
transformed to u E-o-wah"; Ohio was called 
"O-e-o" ; Missouri was made akin to "Misery," 
and Pennsylvania sounded oddly enough as 
"Pennsyl-vah-ne-ah." These are but specimens 
and will serve to indicate the puzzle of our Eng- 
lish friends over our distinctive American names. 
This amusing preface was followed by the cir- 
culation among the guests of the "grace" or 
"loving-cup," which, with all the antique cere- 
mony of a far-away age, formed one of the 
unique features of the feast. Recalling the days 
when death was not infrequently dealt at the fes- 
tal board, three of the guests stand as the mas- 
sive silver cup is passed so that no treacherous 
assault could be made while the unsuspicious 
victim was deep in his cups. The Lord Mayor 
taking the loving-cup in both hands turns to the 
guest by his side, who removes the cover for his 
Lordship to drink. This done, and the rim of 
the goblet carefully wiped with a napkin, the 
guest replaces the cover and receives the vessel 
into his own hands, and turns to his next neigh- 
bor, who performs the same kindly office for 
him, while the next to him stands to wait his 



The Lord Mayor's Dinner. 143 

turn. The third removes the cover for the sec- 
ond to take his draught, and the fourth for the 
third, the cover being carefully replaced between, 
and so the long* rows of guests are united in 
this pledge of love. Next came the cry, " My 
Lord Mayor, my Lords, ladies and gentlemen ; I 
pray you silence for the Lord Mayor's speech," 
and a pleasant address of welcome followed, to 
which, in the absence of the Archbishop, conse- 
quent upon his recent domestic bereavement, 
the Archbishop of York responded in a most 
felicitous speech. The Metropolitan of Sidney, 
Dr. Barker, replied to the toast to the Col- 
onial Churches, and the Bishop of New York to 
that referring most kindly to the American 
Church. The Lord Mayor seemed somewhat 
oblivious of the events of a century ago, sepa- 
rating a portion of the " colonies" from the Brit- 
ish empire, but his amusing reference to the 
American Bishops as "Colonial Prelates" was 
happily corrected by our good Bishop Potter. 
The speeches were full of interest, some of 
them were brilliant ; and the spectacle in this 
noble hall, with the blazonry of silver and gold 
making the surroundings of the Lord Mayor 
and his guests gorgeous, with the glory of the 



144 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

great windows of stained glass illustrating 
epochs of the city's history and illuminated for the 
occasion ; with exquisite statues in niches all 
about us, and with the grace and splendor seen 
upon the floor, was one of striking interest. At 
length the health of the Lord Bishop of London 
was proposed, to which Dr. Jackson responded 
with dignity and point. Taking this as the sig- 
nal for departure, the banquet was quickly de- 
serted by the guests, and soon the announce- 
ment that " the carriage of the Master of the 
Charterhouse blocks the way," found us, at near 
midnight, quite ready to accompany our most 
excellent host to our delightful London home. 
Through the thronged streets we were rapidly 
driven, and shortly the hospitable walls of the 
Charterhouse enclosed us once more. 



XIII, 



Lincoln and Riseholme. 



ORE beautiful in our eyes than any other of 
the Cathedrals of England is Lincoln, "on 
its sovran height." As the pilgrim to the shrine 
of S. Hugh approaches the city from the fens 
and lowlands of the country roundabout, the 
view of the noble Minster crowning the hill-top 
and apparently resting on the tops of tall trees, 
which appear to lift it up on high, seems to be a 
revelation of a bit of "the holy city, new Jeru- 
salem, coming down from God, out of heaven." 
No other Cathedral thus stands out against the 



146 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

horizon, perfect in outline and graceful in every 
architectural detail. The towers and lofty nave 
were seen in bold relief against the smoky foggy 
sky as we neared the city, and soon in the Bish- 
op's carriage, which met us at the station, we 
were driven up the steep ascent, and beside the 
beautiful west front, and then under the Roman 
arch, two thousand years old, and over the 
Roman road leading to the Bishop's palace. 

Invited as we were to Risholme, the palace 
of the reverend and beloved Bishop Wordsworth, 
with whom we had spent several days on occa- 
sion of one of our earlier pilgrimages to Lincoln, 
we were welcomed by the Bishop and Mrs. 
Wordsworth to one of the most interesting 
" homes" of England. The Bishop's vast col- 
lection of books filled room after room, and hall 
and vestibule besides. It was the accumulation 
of several generations, for the learned Bishop is 
the son of a noted scholar, the Master of Trinity 
College, Cambridge, as well as the nephew of 
the poet. A son of Canon Wordsworth, whose 
acquaintance we had made before, is a fellow of 
Brasenose, Oxford, and bids fair, both in schol- 
arship and literary work, to do honor to the 
name he bears. Of the ladies of the family, we 



Lincoln and Riseholme. 147 

can only say that Mrs. Wordsworth was cer- 
tainly one of the loveliest women we saw in 
England, while her daughters, by their charm 
of manner and thorough culture, make Rise- 
holme a most attractive spot, and the home-cir- 
cle there one of the most interesting of the 
many in which we were fortunate enough to be 
made welcome. 

. We were just in time for dinner, which was 
served in the grand hall, the walls of which bore 
the portraits of the former Bishops of the See 
from the days of good S. Hugh. There was a 
pleasant gathering of the Cathedral dignitaries, 
the neighboring nobility, and Bishops from vari- 
ous quarters of the world, and the occasion was 
one of great enjoyment. After the dinner, and 
when coffee had been served in the long draw- 
ing-room, the bell rang to prayers and the whole 
company proceeded to the private chapel of the 
palace, which was under the same roof and had 
all the seemly deckings of any house of prayer. 
The servants, more than a score in number, 
were all in their places, each with bible, prayer 
book, and the good Bishop's own hymnal, 
"The Holy Year," in hand. The Bishop, fully 
robed, occupied his " stall," and the other Bish- 
ops were arranged beside him, while the family 



148 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

and guests filled the seats about the third side 
of the chapel, the front of which had its altar 
with cross and candlesticks and its vesting of 
embroidered cloth. The service of evening 
prayer was said by the Bishop's son and chap- 
lain, the Rev. John Wordsworth, M.A., and 
the music was rendered by the little congrega- 
tion, led by the instrumental performance of a 
daughter of the Bishop. Thus sweetly closed 
the day, with the dear words of the Church's 
prayers and praise, and after a pleasant "good 
night," we were soon in our rooms, wooing the 
coveted repose of sleep. 

In the morning, after a visit to the parish 
church and the grave of good Bishop Kaye, 
whose historical works I had learned years ago 
to prize, and whose son, the present Archdeacon 
of Lincoln, I had the pleasure of meeting the 
night before, we drove into the city, where the 
Precentor, the Rev. Mr. Venables, took us all 
over the Cathedral, and Mr. James Parker, the 
distinguished antiquarian and archaeologist, ad- 
ded his admirable expositions of the many strik- 
ing beauties which met our eyes at every turn. 
It is impossible to describe them or to do justice 
to the sermon by our own dear Bishop of West- 
ern New York, which followed a noble choral 



Lincoln and Riseholme. 149 

service. It was a splendid piece of oratory from 
one who never speaks without giving "goodly 
words." After the service the long procession 
of Bishops and clergy in their robes, with a 
crowd of the congregation, proceeded to the 
grounds of the old palace, now disused and in 
ruins, adjacent to the Cathedral, where the vener- 
able Bishop, his pastoral staff in hand, addressed 
words of special welcome to the Bishops from 
abroad, concluding with a felicitous reference to 
the presence of the Historian of the Church of 
England, one of his own clergy, the Rev. Canon 
Perry, and the Historiographer of the American 
Church, the Bishop of Iowa, who bore the same 
name. Short speeches followed, after which re- 
freshments were served, and shortly we were 
rattling over the old Roman flinty pavement to 
the palace at Riseholme, three miles away. It 
was hard, the following morning, to leave a spot 
where every attraction conspired to delay the 
visitor. Here was a library of thousands of vol- 
umes, old and new, rare and rarissima. Here 
were interesting portraits giving the beholder a 
lesson in English history. Here were letters 
and manuscript poems of Wordsworth, Southey, 
Lamb, Byron, Rogers, Campbell, Kirk White, 
and Tennyson. Here were sweet views of Eng- 



150 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

lish rural scenery at every turn, for Riseholme 
stands apart from the world, and is a charming 
little world of itself. But the going was a neces- 
sity, and early though the starting was, it was 
not too early for the dear Bishop's personal fare- 
well and blessing, and the gentle presence of his 
wife, whose sweet courtesy and interest in her 
guests was thus kindly shown. Sooner than we 
wished a turn in the road shut out from view de- 
lightful Riseholme. and we were again hurrying 
to the station, on our way to Peterborough and 
towards our London home. 

It was our third visit to this noble shrine, the 
sepulchre of Katherine of Aragon, and the spot 
where the mutilated body of Mary, Queen of 
Scots, rested awhile ere it was laid in West- 
minster Abbey, not far from the remains of her 
rival and murderess, Queen Elizabeth. It was 
a pleasant task to revive in mind and memory 
the noble Norman arches and columns of this 
noble Minster, and to point out to those of our 
party to whom Peterborough was a novelty the 
wonderful beauty of the west front, with its 
unique arcade. Reluctantly we passed under 
the gates of the Cathedral close into the city 
market-place, and were driven to the station en 
route for Ely. 



XIV. 



Ely. 



WE had been entertained at Ely House in 
London by Bishop Woodford, to whose 
courtesy and fraternal care, in the thoughtful as- 
signment of each American Bishop to an English 
prelate of corresponding years in the Episcopate, 
the Bishop of Iowa had been from the first allot- 
ted, and it was with no little pleasure that we 
stopped on our way from Lincoln to revisit the 
Cathedral at Ely, which is one of the finest in 
England, and where the Dean is no other than 
the distinguished historian, Dr. Merivale. 

The faith of Christ was introduced into East- 



152 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Anglia near the end of the sixth century, by 
Redwald, grandson of Ufta, founder of the king- 
dom. A religious house is said to have been 
established at Ely about A. D. 604. Etheldreda, 
a princess of distinguished piety, had as her 
dower the Isle of Ely, so called from the fact 
that Ely was built upon the largest of a num- 
ber of islands rising out of the waters of the 
Fens. This was in the middle of the seventh 
century, and on the death of her husband, she 
founded the monastery which the Danes de- 
stroyed in A. D. 870. Just a century later it 
was re-established by the Bishop of Winchester. 
Here it was, as an old English poem recites, that 

Merrily sang the monks within Ely, 
When Canute, the King, rowed thereb}'; 

and the monarch bade his knights rest on their 
oars, while they listened to the music of the ves- 
per song. 

The present Cathedral was begun by Simeon, 
the first Norman abbot (1082-1094) ; and prior 
to 1 107 it was so far complete as to be conse- 
crated to S. Peter and S. Etheldreda, the pious 
Queen, to whom the establishment of the first re- 
ligious house in the Isle of Ely was due. The 
''Galilee" porch was built 1198-1215 and the 
Norman choir was rebuilt 1 235-1 252. The cen- 



Ely. 153 

tral tower fell in 1322, and the octagon, which 
replaced it, was completed in 1328. The lan- 
tern was added between that time and 1342. 
The western part of the choir, ruined by the 
fall of the tower, was rebuilt about 1338. The 
Lady-chapel was begun in 1321 and finished in 
twenty-eight years. There is no Cathedral in 
England which possesses finer examples of the 
various successive styles of ecclesiastical archi- 
tecture than that of Ely. The Norman portion of 
the building — the nave and transepts — is lighter 
in character than earlier examples of the same 
style. In fact, it bears many traces of transition 
from the round to the pointed style. Of each 
of the three periods of this pointed or Gothic 
style of architecture, Ely possesses pure and per- 
fect specimens. The Galilee, or Western Porch, 
was built when the first or English style was per- 
fected. The Octagon, three bays of the choir 
and the Lady Chapel, were built when the second 
or decorated English prevailed ; and the chapels 
of Bishops Alcocke and West when the third or 
perpendicular style was adopted. The Cathe- 
dral thus illustrates the history of church archi- 
tecture from the Conquest to the Reformation. 
As one enters, the words of Isaac Williams 
occur to mind : 



1^4 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

''Without, the world's unceasing noises rise, 
Turmoil, disquietude and busy fears; 
Within, there are the sounds of other years, 
Thoughts full of prayer and solemn harmonies." 

The porch is, perhaps, a disfigurement in its 
place, hiding as it does, somewhat of the grand 
west front, but it brings out the noticeable points 
of the Cathedral, which are the great length, 
565 feet, the noble appearance of the lofty arches, 
and the sublime grandeur of the whole effect, as 
seen on crossing the threshold. Pausing at the 
Baptistery, we cannot fail to notice the magnifi- 
cence of the columns of the nave, which, purely 
Norman though they are, combine ornament 
and exquisite beauty hardly excelled by the more 
florid styles of architecture elsewhere seen. En- 
tering the choir, we look up to note the deco- 
rated Lantern, gorgeous in its coloring, and then 
the eye is caught by the exquisite reredos, giving 
in tinted alabaster the five scenes of our Lord's 
passion, with accompanying tracery-carving of 
marvelous beauty. The altar, resplendent with 
its cloth of richest embroidery, thus finds its fitting 
back-ground, and the whole effect of the sanc- 
tuary is at once uplifting and eloquent of the 
Divine mysteries which here have their shrine. 
The chapels of Bishops Alcocke and West are 
each marvels of carved work, while the Lady 



Ely. 155 

Chapel, a noble structure added at the north side 
of the choir, must have been, ere its spoliation by 
the Puritans, one of the grandest temples in 
England. It is, or rather was, a mass of most 
delicately and tastefully carved stonework, but 
not a figure out of thousands has escaped the 
mutilation of men who deemed that they were 
doing God service when they destroyed the 
carved work of His house "with axes and ham- 
mers." That which the reverence of one age 
had lovingly offered to beautify the shrine of the 
Most High, the irreverence and intolerance of a 
later day wantonly destroyed. Upwards of three 
hundred thousand dollars have been expended 
within the past few years in restoring somewhat 
the old glory of this glorious fane ! About 
the Cathedral, for we will not attempt to des- 
cribe it, are many of the old buildings still used 
by those who serve in the house of the Lord. 
The palace of the Bishop is close at hand, and 
forms an imposing and appropriate adjunct to 
the west front. The King's College, near by, 
and the homes of the Dean and Canons, are por- 
tions of the old buildings, and reproduce in whole 
or in part the Infirmary, the Cloisters, the Chap- 
ter House, and the other edifices of a great re- 
ligious community. Quaint enough is the mosaic 

11 



156 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

the walls of these houses present. Noble Nor- 
man arches, with the striking dog-tooth orna- 
mentations of early English pointed tracery, 
filled in with brick or stone, make the side of a 
modern English home, and from under a bit of 
old-time groining there looks out of a latticed 
window a bright-faced English maiden, decking 
herself for the evening repast, or a walk through 
the close. Amidst the tall columns cut and 
placed more than eight hundred years ago, is a 
modern kitchen, and the air is savory as we pass. 
Ferns and flowers but half conceal a broken 
"gargoyle," which was carved by men whose 
very sepulchres of hewn stone have crumbled 
into dust. The old and the new meet at every 
turn, and oppressed by a sense of what we have 
seen, we hasten from the noble masonry of Nor- 
man or old English days to take the train for the 
next stage of our pilgrimage, if indeed we are 
pilgrims, whose only staff is the ever-present 
umbrella, and whose scrip has sovereigns or 
Bank of England notes stuffed within, instead 
of the more pilgrim-like crust of bread or dole of 
alms. Within the old walls we seem for a mo- 
ment to live in the past. Outside, the present 
asserts its claim upon us. 



XV. 



Cambridge. 



IT was at "high noon" on a most oppressive 
summer day that we reached the vast plain 
embosomed in lofty trees where lies the ancient 
town of Cambridge. The ride from London 
had been hot and dusty almost beyond endur- 
ance, and it was with a sense of great relief that 
we exchanged our stuffy and stifling '* first- 
class" railway carriage for the open u fly," 
which quickly bore us to our comfortable inn. 

" Onward we drove beneath the Castle; caught 

While crossing - Magdalene Bridge, a glimpse of Cam ; 
And at the Hoop alighted, famous Inn." 

Wordsworth : The Prelude. 



158 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

The "Hoop" no longer claims the foremost 
place among the hostelries of the University 
town, but it had been the resting-place of 
Wordsworth, and had honorable mention in his 
"Excursion," and so we shut our eyes to the 
superior attractions and longer reckonings of 
the "Bull," itself referred to in Milton's verse, 
and were soon happily and comfortably domi- 
ciled in the quarters which had been ours only 
a few years before. Soon, refreshed and impa- 
tient to renew the memories of our earlier ram- 
bles through the town, we were threading our 
way among the winding, labyrinthal streets and 
lanes, over which for nearly nine centuries the 
feet of scholars and students have trod. 

Our way led through the Master's Court be- 
side the "Lodge" where the famous William 
Whewell, Master of Trinity, lived and died, to 
S. John's Gateway. Through this massive por- 
tal, bearing on its front the sculptured "Tudor 
rose" and Beaufort portcullis, with the Crown 
and "Marguerite" interspersed, the quaint de- 
vice of the Foundress, Lady Margaret Beaufort, 
Countess of Richmond and Derby, and mother 
of King Henry VII., we entered the first and 
oldest court. Glancing, as we passed, at the 
magnificent chapel, a late erection from designs 



Cambridge. 159 

by the celebrated Sir Gilbert Scott, we hastened 
through the successive quadrangles and over the 
cloistered bridge, spanning the Cam with its 
single arch, and beyond the gateway with its 
exquisitely groined roof of stone, sought the Col- 
lege grounds, where we rested amidst the most 
picturesque surroundings possible to conceive. 
The bold and massive river front of the quad- 
rangle through which we had come ; the noble 
lantern-tower, rising one hundred and twenty 
feet ; the bridge which in itself is a charming bit 
of architecture ; the river mirroring all about its 
banks, — bridge, tower, and the waving flowers 
and shrubs on either side ; the long reach of 
meadows with the soft greensward relieved by 
shady trees artistically grouped or standing out 
in solitary grandeur ; all made up a most attrac- 
tive scene, needing but the nightingale's note, 
which we had once heard in these grounds, to 
make our pleasure perfect. Here we sat on the 
grassy terraces with our pleasant party, among 
whom were the Bishop of Pennsylvania and 
Airs. Stevens, until the light of day had faded 
out, and then "taking boat," we spent a lovely 
English -twilight hour rowing up and clown the 
Cam. Crowds of pleasure- seekers filled the 
walks on the banks, or with us enjoyed the cool 



160 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

of the evening on the narrow stream, till at 
length the lights faded out, the voices of the 
wanderers ceased, and as the evening bell rang 
its "curfew" note, we left the grounds ere the 
gates were closed and silence reigned within. 
At S.John's, "rare Benjonson," Robert Her- 
rick, Thomas Otway, Matthew Prior, Mark 
Akenside, Henry Kirk White, and William 
Wordsworth, all poets of renown, were stu- 
dents ; while in other walks of life, we reckon 
up the historic names of statesmen, authors and 
scholars whose deeds and words are part of 
England's heritage of glory from the past. Ce- 
cil, Lord Burleigh ; Wentworth, Earl of Strat- 
ford ; Thomas Sutton, founder of the " Charter- 
house"; William Wilberforce, the Christian 
philanthropist, were educated here, and from 
the quiet cloisters of S.John's, Henry Martyn, 
leaving every earthly prospect behind him, went 
forth to die as a humble missionary in a distant 
land, and in his death to win an earthly immor- 
tality. 

Several days were devoted to the various col- 
leges and churches of this interesting town. 
vSide by side with S.John's stands Trinity, the 
noblest collegiate foundation in the World, 
whether we consider the number of its mem- 



Cambridge. 161 

bers, the extent and grandeur of its buildings, 
or the long roll of illustrious men who have 
been educated within its walls. The "King's 
Gateway" stands at the entrance of this " royal 
and religious foundation," dedicated "in honor 
of the Holy and Undivided Trinity," and bears — 
amidst canopies and elaborate tracery-work, sur- 
rounding and supporting the armorial bearings 
of kingly and noble founders and benefactors, — 
a statue of bluff Henry VIII., while within are 
the effigies of King James I., with his Queen 
and son, afterwards the unfortunate Charles I. 
There are four courts, the first being the most 
spacious collegiate quadrangle in the world, 
and with its grouping of the Chapel, the Mas- 
ter's Lodge, the lofty Conduit or Fountain, and 
the Hall and Combination Room of various 
styles of early English architecture and pur- 
posely differing in details as well as in pictur- 
esqueness, it affords one of the most impressive 
sights in Cambridge. In the Ante-Chapel are 
grouped statues of the highest order of merit of 
Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Barrow, 
and Lord Macaulay, each a student of "Trinity." 
The carving of the stalls of the choir is the 
work of the celebrated Grinding Gibbons, whose 
fruit and flowers seem to rival nature's work. 



162 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

In this chapel on "Surplice days," at the choral 
service, one can see a "band of white -robed 
scholars," numbering upwards of five hundred, 
kneeling at once in common prayer. The lib- 
rary contains Thorwaldsen's beautiful statue of 
Lord Byron. Here are the autograph originals 
of Milton's Masque of Com us, Arcades and 
Lycidas, and three different plans of Paradise 
Lost, each in turn discarded by the poet. Here 
too is the Codex Augiensis, a Greek and Latin 
manuscript of S. Paul's Epistles, upwards of a 
thousand years old, From this renowned foun- 
dation of letters and learning have come Bacon, 
Barrow, Newton, and Porson, among the pro- 
found philosophers and scholars of the world. 
Its poets are the quaint and affected Donne, 
the divine Herbert, Cowley, Dryden, Crabbe, 
Byron, and latest but not least, Tennyson. 

" Fairer seems the ancient College, and the sunshine 
seems more fair; 
That he once has trod its pavement, that he once 
has breathed its air." 

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Queen Eliza- 
beth's favorite and victim ; Erskine, Lord High 
Chancellor ; Macaulay and Whewell, each re- 
nowned in his own particular sphere, may be 
added to the list, and these are but a few of the 



Cambridge. 163 

many names of " Trinity" men which the world 
will not sutler to be forgotten. 

Next to Trinity, we come to Gonville and 
Caius College, the latter name being pro- 
nounced "Keys," its most common designation. 
This old foundation, dating back its origin to 
A. D. 1348, we enter by the " Gate of Humility," 
the entrance having the inscription, ^Humili- 
tatis" carved above its portal. The approach 
to the second court is through a more striking 
gateway, bearing on its front the word " Virtu- 
tis" and on the other side "Jo Caius posuit 
Sapienticc" — John Caius built this in honor of 
Wisdom. The third gateway, leading to the 
Schools and Senate House, is even more orna- 
mented, and bears the inscription, "Honoris." 
The plan of the founder was to inculcate the 
lesson, that through humility and virtue, one 
gains by wisdom, honor. There is in "Caius" 
little to impress one other than this quaint le- 
gend, cut in stone, and learned as we walk 
through the successive courts ; and remembering 
that from this foundation the world has gained 
such men as William Harvey, discoverer of the 
circulation of the blood, Sir Thomas Gresham, 
founder of the Royal Exchange of London, 
Bishop Jeremy Taylor, and the non-juring 



164 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Bishop Jeremy Collier, and Lord Chancellor 
Thurlow, we pass on to "Clare." Here, de- 
lightfully situated on the western bank of the 
Cam, with a single spacious court, and con- 
nected by a picturesque bridge of three arches 
with the "green fields beyond," reached through 
a noble avenue of limes, is one of the two oldest 
foundations in Cambridge. Here, too, Hugh 
Latimer, Bishop and martyr, the saintly Nicho- 
las Ferrar, the intellectual Cudworth, the elo- 
quent Archbishop Tillotson, the pious Hervey, 
author of the "Meditations," and the poet Gray 
were scholars. 

Turning from stately "Clare," we leave on 
the left Trinity Hall, and pass the University 
Library, the Senate House and the Schools, ere 
we reach the King's Parade and approach the 
magnificent Chapel of King's. We might have 
lingered in the Library, — which contains nearly 
a quarter of a million of printed books and MSS. 
with rarities, such as etchings by Rembrant, 
and the MS. prayers belonging to King Ed- 
ward VI. ; imprints by Caxton, Faust, and 
Jausen, and the celebrated Codex of the Gospels 
and Acts in uncial letters on vellum, presented 
by Theodore Beza in 15S1, which is one of the 
most ancient manuscripts of the Gospels extant, 



Ca ?)z b ridge. 1 65 

— but King's College Chapel was before us, the 

chief object of attraction in Cambridge, and we 

hurried on. Familiar in our student days with 

tne Library building of "Harvard," the exterior 

of wh'ch in outline and in some minor features, 

was suggested, sed longo intervallo, by this 

magnificent structure, we were soon within its 

walls, impressed as we had rarely been before 

with its massive splendor. Begun by the meek 

and unfortunate Henry VI., it was nearly a cen- 

turv in building, but the work of these many 

years produced an edifice which must ever 

rank among the finest in Christendom. 

" Thej T dreamt not of a perishable home 
Who thus could build.'' 

The style is perpendicular, and in its very 
sumptuousness of decoration, it shows the de- 
cline of the true principles of pointed architec- 
ture ; but in its magnitude, being three hundred 
and sixteen feet in length, eighty- four feet in 
breadth, and the height of the interior seventy- 
eight feet, and of the corner turrets one hundred 
and forty-seven feet ; in the glory of its match- 
less glass, and in the perfection of its condition, 
it must ever be regarded as one of the noblest 
architectural works of mediaeval days. The 
exterior is at once striking and grand ; but the 



166 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

interior is still more impressive. The "branch- 
ing roof" of stone, is vaulted throughout with 
exquisite fan-tracery, unbroken by a single col- 
umn. There are the 

" Storied windows richly dight, — 
Casting a dim, religious light-" 

One is struck by the "awful prospective," as 
Wordsworth styles it in his sonnets "Inside 
of King's College Chapel" : — 

" Where light and shade repose, where music dwells. 
Lingering — and wandering on as loth to die; 
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
That they were born for immortality. 

The walls on the inside of the Ante-Chapel 
are ornamented with carved stone-work, most 
delicately executed. Crowned roses, portcull- 
ises, and fleurs-de-lis, the armorial devices of 
Henry VII., abound on every side. The choir 
is separated from the Ante-Chapel by a carved 
oaken screen, erected in 1534, when Anne 
Boleyn was Queen. The ornamentation is that 
of lovers' knots, while a panel on one side dis- 
plavs the Boleyn arms impaled with those of the 
King. The stalls are of comparatively inferior 
workmanship and design. It is the stained 
glass, "the storied windows richly dight" of 
Milton's II Penseroso, which for brilliancy and 



Cainbridge. 167 

purity of color, artistic design and execution, 
completeness of arrangement and remarkable 
preservation, makes this Chapel worthy of spe- 
cial mention. Of the twenty-six immense win- 
dows,, each nearly fifty feet in height, all but 
one are filled with imagery, the upper portions 
comprising subjects from the Old Testament, 
and the lower from the New, giving type and 
antitype. The richness and purity of the col- 
oring, the grace and freedom of the drawing, 
the artistic skill displayed in the grouping, and 
the careful attention to the details of the scenes 
represented, have rarely been exceeded. Both 
the designs and workmanship are English, and 
to London artizans inspired by the munificence 
of Henry VII., these remarkable works of sa- 
cred art are due. Walsingham, Secretary of 
State to Queen Elizabeth, Bishop Pearson, the 
author of the Exposition of the Creed, Edmund 
Waller, the Poet of the Commonwealth. Robert 
Walpole, the statesman, and Horace Walpole, 
the man of letters, and the celebrated "Evan- 
gelical" preacher, Charles Simeon, are among 
the famous names on the books of King's. 

Corpus Christi College is noticeable for its 
modern buildings, and also for the manuscripts 
in its library. Among these are the originals 



1 68 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

of the XXXIX Articles, and many most valua- 
ble Reformation documents given by Matthew 
Parker, the first Archbishop of Canterbury after 
the yoke of Rome was thrown off. The Arch- 
bishop and several of his successors in the See 
of Canterbury, Lord Keeper Bacon, Kit Mar- 
low and John Fletcher, the dramatists, Gough, 
the celebrated archaeologist, and others no less 
distinguished in Church and State and in letters, 
are among the eminent men of Corpus Christi. 
S. Catherine's, where Bradford, priest and 
martyr, Lightfoot, the eminent Hebraist, and 
Strype, the Ecclesiastical historian, were edu- 
cated ; Queen's, where Erasmus, when at Cam- 
bridge had his study at the top of the tower of 
the court still called by his name ; the Pitt 
Press, or University printing house ; Pembroke, 
associated with the names of Ridley, Bishop and 
martyr, John Rogers, priest and proto-martyr, 
Edmund Spenser, the poet of the "Faery 
Queen," Lancelot Andrews, the sainted Bishop 
of Winchester, Richard Crashaw, the poet, 
William Pitt, the statesman, and others ; and 
"Peterhouse," the oldest collegiate foundation in 
Cambridge, founded by Hugh de Balsham, 
Bishop of Ely, in 12S4, bring us in succession to 
the Fitzwilliam Museum, the last of the college 



Cambridge. 169 

buildings in Trumpington street. Returning by 
another way, we pass by Downing College, the 
latest collegiate foundation, in the University, it 
having been opened in 1821, and shortly reach 
"Emmanuel" College, where we stopped to 
feed the swans, as we had earlier petted the 
spotted deer at Peterhouse. Christ's College 
was next on our way, famous for the mulberry 
tree planted in its garden by Milton when a stu- 
dent here. The trunk is much decayed, but it 
is carefully propped up and will doubtless live 
for many a year. We plucked a leaf and gazed 
awhile at this interesting relic ere we turned 
away. "Sidney Sussex," where Oliver Crom- 
well was a student, occupies the site of a Fran- 
ciscan monastery. Jesus College, where Arch- 
bishop Cranmer, Laurence Sterne, the author 
of Tristam Shandy, and Samuel Taylor Cole- 
ridge were scholars, was of especial interest to 
us as the college of a dear friend in our own 
land. It stands amidst gardens and green 
fields, and of it King James I. remarked, "that 
if he lived in the University, he would pray at 
King's, eat at Trinity, and study and sleep at 
Jesus." This college is the only instance of a 
monastic establishment being transformed bod- 
ily into a college. It was a Benedictine nun- 



170 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

nery, on the suppression of which the munifi- 
cent Alcock, Bishop of Ely, converted it with 
its buildings, revenues and lands into the pres- 
ent noble foundation. The entrance gateway 
at the end of the long walk, is a striking and 
beautitul bit of brick and stone work, covered 
with ivy and opening into the first court, which 
with its green meadows in front and open sunny 
aspect, wears a most attractive look. The sec- 
ond court is entered through a beautiful though 
unpretending portal, and is surrounded by a 
venerable-looking cloister, occupying the site of 
the nunnery cloisters. The third court is small 
and of little account. The chapel is only second 
to that of King's in its beauty. It was the old 
church of S. Rhadegunde's, and has been res- 
tored with every care to reproduce the style and 
decorations of the early fabric. The carvings, 
glass, metal-work, and all the fittings of this 
sumptuous chapel are most creditable, as attest- 
ing the proficiency of modern art in reproduc- 
ing the examples and models of an earlier day. 
An unique memorial of the original character 
of the foundation is a stone in the south transept 
bearing the inscription, MORIBUS ORNATA, 
JACET HIC BONA BERTA ROSATA. 
Crossing "Magdalene Bridge" and passing 



Cambridge. 171 

the site of the "Castle," now destroyed, to 
which Wordsworth in his "Excursion" refers, 
we reach Magdalen College, which occupies the 
site of a Benedictine priory, established about 
1430. Magdalen is specially interesting as con- 
taining the "Bibliotheca Pepysiana" and the 
original diary of Pepys, comprised in six vol- 
umes, closely written in short-hand, and con- 
taining in upwards of three thousand pages a 
daily record of every noteworthy public or pri- 
vate transaction from 1659 to 1669. Here too 
were most interesting collections of English and 
Scottish ballads, dating back to the earliest pe- 
riod, and other interesting literary treasures. 

Such was our round of inspection, from hall 
to hall till all the colleges had been visited. 
The other notable sights of Cambridge were not 
overlooked. The famous Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre, which is in a fine state of preserva- 
tion, is the oldest of the four round churches re- 
maining in England. It was consecrated in the 
year 1 101 and was doubtless built by some early 
crusader as a votive offering for a safe return 
from Holy Land. S. Giles is of even earlier 
date, having been founded in 1092, the chancel 
walls and arch being of that time. S. Peter's, 
almost a ruin, is supposed to occupy the site of 
12 



i"jz Some Summer Days Abroad. 

a temple of Diana in the old Roman city of 
Camboritum. The Falcon Inn is an ancient 
mediaeval hostelry just out of "Petty Cury" 
street. This is the oldest inn in Cambridge, 
and still retains its quaint and picturesque open 
gallery carried round the exterior of the second 
story. Hobson's Conduit brings to mind the 
famous carrier who has given a proverb to the 
English language, "Hobson's choice, this or 
none," by his strict requirement that his horses 
should have regular use and rest, and who is the 
subject of two epitaphs by no less a poet than 
Milton. S. Michael's Church, founded in 1324, 
is still one of the most seemly and creditable 
places of worship in Cambridge. The Univer- 
sity Church, S. Mary the Great, dates its foun- 
dation back to 147S. S. Edward's was erected 
about 1350. S. Benedict's has a tower of Saxon 
architecture, one of the most perfect and inter- 
esting examples remaining in England. S. Mary 
the Less is a beautiful example of the decorated 
style, consecrated in 1347. S. Botolph's is of 
the late perpendicular architecture, and well re- 
pays a cursory examination. 

Among our pleasant memories of Cambridge, 
is the recollection of a lunch at Canon Lightfoot's 
rooms in the Master's Court of Trinity. Amidst 



Cam b ridge. 1 73 

the noble collection of books gathered by this 
unrivalled scholar we were most hospitably en- 
tertained, while the "lunch," to which Bishop 
and Mrs. Stevens, as well as our own party, 
with some local notables, were invited, was one 
of the most delightful repasts we have ever en- 
joyed. Professor Lightfoot had been my next 
neighbor at a noble feast at the Charterhouse 
some weeks before, and earlier I had gone a 
long way to hear him preach a masterly sermon 
while in residence as Canon of S. Paul's, and it 
was with great pleasure that we renewed our 
acquaintance thus agreeably in his own rooms 
and among the evidences of his learned labors. 
From the midst of his great work at the Univer- 
sity he has since been removed to fill the Bish- 
opric of Durham, and as the "Prince Bishop" 
of the North of England, we are confident that 
he will still win the golden opinions which have 
been his all through his remarkable career. 

Regretfully declining numerous invitations to 
other festivities and pleasures, we turned away 
from Cambridge with feelings of love and inter- 
est second only to those with which we must 
ever regard its ancient rival, Oxford. 



XVI. 



Kensington Palace and the Savoy. 



IN his fascinating diary, that delightful Chris- 
tian gentleman and Churchman, John Eve- 
lyn, records under date of February 25, 1690-1, 
these words : "I went to Kensington, which 
King William had bought of Lord Nottingham, 
and altered, but was yet a patched building ; 
but with the gardens, however, it is a very neat 
villa, having to it the park and a straight new 
way through the park." It was at this 
"patched building," though a "palace," that we 
were left one bright Saturday afternoon after a 
charming drive through the parks, and we 



Kensington Palace and the Savoy 175 

failed not to remember, as we looked upon the 
dingy brick quadrangles and the quaint and un- 
palatial aspect of the structure, that Queen Vic- 
toria was born beneath these gabled roofs and 
here first learned that in her youth and inexpe- 
rience she was the mistress of the noblest nation 
of Europe. As we drove through the paved 
courts to the apartments of our dear and hon- 
ored friend, the Rev. Prebendary Bullock, the 
Chaplain of the Palace, we were reminded of 
an almost ludicrous mishap on occasion of an 
earlier visit to Kensington, when by our driver's 
blunder we were all but ushered into the draw- 
ing-rooms of the Marquis of Lome and the 
Princess Louise, in our effort to dine with the 
worthy Prebend of S. Panl's. The greetings 
over and our weariness relieved, we were shown 
about the palace and its pleasant grounds by 
our host, accompanied by his charming wife, 
the daughter of Dean Alford of Canterbury, and 
their children, our sweet little Margie and Edith, 
whose interest in their latest novelty, the Bishop 
of Haiti, gave way somewhat in behalf of an- 
other Bishop from a more distant See. 

One could hardly sleep in our pleasant apart- 
ments, from the latticed windows of which the 
inner court with its quaint gables and cloisters 



176 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

was visible, in view of the historic associations 
clustering around this irregular pile. Sir Chris- 
topher Wren at the bidding of the King had 
added a story to the old home of the Earl of 
Nottingham, and also built the south front, and 
from this beginning, the adornment of the pal- 
ace became an absorbing passion with the 
phlegmatic William, occupying much of his 
time when in England and not forgotten even 
when in his continental home. Here Queen 
Mary died, after a solemn Sacrament, the Arch- 
bishops and Bishops who were in attendance 
receiving the consecrated elements with her. 
It was indeed as Bishop Burnet says: "God 
knows a sorrowful company, for we were losing 
her who was our chief hope and glory on earth." 
Here King William died. Here " good Queen 
Anne," as her end drew near, placed the Lord 
Treasurer's wand in the hand of the Duke of 
Shrewsbury, saying, "For God's sake, use it for 
the good of my people," and after hours of anx- 
iety, during which the succession in the House 
of Hanover depended on a dying woman's re- 
turn to consciousness, died and mace no sign. 
Here George the II. died. Here Victoria, only 
daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, was born 
and christened. Here the virgin Queen's first 



Kensington Palace and the Savoy. 177 

council was held ; and here the Princess Louise, 
Marchioness of Lome, and the Princess Mary, 
younger daughter of the late Duke of Cam- 
bridge, reside. 

Wc were to preach in the plain, unpretend- 
ing chapel of the palace, and in the royal pew 
opposite the pulpit we saw the Princess Mary 
of Teck, with her brother-in-law, the Grand 
Duke of Mechlenburg, and his son, Prince 
George of Brunswick, and their dear little "se- 
rene highnesses," the children of the Princess 
Mary. The interest felt in the presence of an 
American prelate was evident. The little prin- 
ces had for their Sunday instruction an account 
of the American Church, and of the Diocese 
of Iowa in particular, and after the service and 
sermon, throughout which they with their eld- 
ers were most interested and attentive, these 
fair-haired, sweet-faced children waited on the 
steps of the palace to pay their respects to the 
preacher as he passed by to his apartments. 

Well do we recall the pleasant hours spent at 
"Old Kensington." The rooms where we were 
so delightfully entertained were rich in treas- 
ures. In the coscy library, where our host, — 
whose loving labors for the Church of God ex- 
tended all over the world through the venerable 



17S Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 
Foreign Parts, of which he was the chief ex- 
ecutive officer. — sought in his moments of free- 
dom from official care to find occupation in exe- 
getical work, there was gathered a theological 
collection of great rarity. Many of Dean Al- 
ford's books were there, and a unique collection 
of the Dean's water-color sketches made during 
his vacation rambles at the English lakes, in the 
Highland, on the lovely Riviera, and in North- 
ern Italy. Here too, around Prebendary Bul- 
lock's hospitable table, gathered Church nota- 
bles from various parts of the world, making us 
familiar with men and scenes quite unknown 
before. And here amidst the varied attractions 
of the place and its occupants we enjoyed every 
moment, save when we thought that we noticed 
the failing strength and increasing languor of 
our beloved host, who, weary and worn with 
the work of the Church of God, has since our 
return laid down his pen and closed his com- 
ments on the word of God he loved so well, and 
has "fallen asleep." Old Kensington will be 
ever dear to us, not so much from its historic 
memories and the interest clustering around its 
royal occupants, but because we here last saw 
this honored servant of God who is now at rest 
in Paradise ! 



Kensington Palace and the Savoy. 179 

Turning aside from the noise and bustle of 
the Strand, one of London's most, crowded 
thoroughfares, one is surprised and impressed to 
find the quiet of a country churchyard, where 
the crumbling memorials of the dead are min- 
gled with the greensward and shaded by lilacs 
and plane trees. The eye rests lovingly on this 
sunny spot, with its open view of the river and 
the Thames Embankment, and the grey pinna- 
cles of the Abbey, and the long reach of the 
Houses of Parliament melting in the distance in 
the haze of a London sky. Under the shadow 
ot the venerable church which stands embow- 
ered amidst the trees, and where the headstones 
of the departed crowd this little bit of turf in the 
heart of busy London, once stood the Savoy 
Palace. Built by Peter, brother of Archbishop 
Boniface, and uncle of Eleanor of Provence, the 
wife of Henry III., it became, after the battle 
of Poitiers in 1356, the residence of the captive 
King of France. To this prison-home King 
John voluntarily returned in consequence of his 
inability to fulfil the conditions of his release ;. 
and here the royal prisoner died on the 9th of 
April, 1364. It was here that Chaucer married 
Phiiippa de Ruet, a lady of the household of 
Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, and sister of 



I So Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Catherine Swyneford, the second wife of John 
of Gaunt. While the Savoy was still the Lon- 
don house of the Duke of Lancaster, it was pil- 
laged and burnt by the rebels under Wat Tyler, 
in consequence of the protection afforded by the 
Duke to the followers of Wickliffe. After its 
destine ion the Savoy was rebuilt by Henry VII. 
as a hospital, dedicated to S.John the Baptist. 
This charity was finally suppressed in the reign 
of Elizabeth. After the Restoration, the Savoy 
Conference was held here for the revision of the 
Book of Common Prayer. Twelve Bishops 
met an equal number of leading Nonconformist 
divines, of whom the celebrated Richard Baxter 
was one. The remains of the palace have all 
disappeared, but it was in the church where we 
preached this lovely summer Sunday afternoon 
that the Liturgy restored by Queen Elizabeth 
on her accession to the throne was first read in 
the vernacular language. The style of architec- 
ture of the Savoy Chapel is perpendicular. It 
has a low bell-tower and a richly colored roof. 
As a royal Chapel, it has been twice restored 
through the charity of the Queen. Within its 
walls may be seen the brass of Gavin Douglas, 
Bishop of Dunkeld, who is represented in Scott's 
Marmion as celebrating the marriage of De 
Wilton and the Lady Clare : 



Kensington Palace and the Savoy. 181 

A bishop at the altar stood, 
A noble lord of Douglas blood, 
With mitre sheen and rocquet white, 
Yet show'd his meek and thoughtful eye 
But little thought of prelacy; 
More pleased that, in a barbarous age, 
He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page, 
Than that beneath his rule he held 
The bishopric of fair Dunkeld. 

Another versifier, George Wither, the poet of 
the Commonwealth, lies here without a monu- 
ment. 

In this quiet nook there was a brilliant con- 
gregation for the special Sunday Sermon which 
the Vicar had announced. The service was 
choral, the choir boys wearing purple cassocks 
under their cottas, and a silver cross. The sing- 
ing" was delightful, and it was an occasion of no 
little interest to preach the everlasting Gospel 
on a spot so crowded with historic memories. 
The service over and the sermon done, we drove 
back to Old Kensington, and on the morrow 
took up afresh our pilgrimage. 



XVII 



Westminster Abbey. 

TO one who enters within the massive portals 
of Westminster Abbey for the first time, the 
impression of its grandeur and beauty cannot be 
other than profound. The transition from the 
outer world, bright with the glare of noon-tide, 
noisy with the ceaseless hum of traffic, or the 
tread of passers-by, to the solemnity and glory 
within, strikes the stranger with awe, and con- 
strains even the most unimpressible visitor to 
pace with bated breath and hushed and faltering 
step these consecrated aisles where rest succes- 
sive generations of the mighty dead. Here, in 
this shrine of Edward the Confessor, the last of 



Westminster Abbey. 183 

the Saxon Kings, there have gathered about 
his sacred ashes for eight hundred years the 
sepulchres of kings and king-like men. Here, 
standing before the high Altar and on the Con- 
fessor's grave, on that wild, wintry Christmas- 
day, A. D. 1066, William of Normandy, the 
founder of a new line of monarchs, surrounded 
by the vanquished Saxons and the victorious 
Normans, received the crown he had won, and 
in all succeeding years it is on this sacred spot, 
and amidst these solemn aisles, that the sover- 
eigns who succeed to William's place and to 
more than the Conqueror's domain have had the 
same investiture. Here, since the days o! Edward 
L, in an oaken chair with the "stone of Scone" 
emb:dded in its seat, the sovereigns of England 
for more than five hundred years have sat at 
coronation, resting during their investiture with 
regal dignity on the stone traditionally known 
as Jacob's Pillar, u a link which unites the 
Throne of England to the traditions of Tara 
and Iona," if not with the plains of Holy Land 
and the patriarch of old. Within these sacred 
walls have gathered the men of many genera- 
tions since those early days when the impatient 
feet of mailed assassins followed the hapless fu- 
gitives of noble or royal birth even into the re- 



184 Some Sum?ner Days Abroad. 

cesses of the Sanctuary ; till now, when all the 
world in pilgrim guise comes to this House of 
God to admire its venerable beauty, to mingle 
in its stately services and each to seek beneath 
this lofty roof and amidst these crowding recol- 
lections of the past, "echoes of some memory, 
dear to himself alone." More than a millennium 
of momentous history meets us at this shrine ; 
and in these sepulchres lie the great and good 
of England's past for twelve hundred years. 
Here legends mingle with chronicles ; and the 
story of the ancient Church of Sebert, King of 
the East Saxons, built on the Isle of Thorns, 
the Abbey's present site, and consecrated by no 
other hands than those of the Chief of the Apos- 
tles ; and the marvel of the revelation to the 
Confessor of the Child, "pure and bright like a 
spirit," seen in the sacramental elements by the 
King, as well as by Leofric, Earl of Coventry, 
who, with the famed Godiva, his wife, was 
present at the consecration of the Host ; and the 
miracle of the cripple's restoration when borne 
by the kindly king "obedient to the heavenly 
vision," on his shoulders to the foot of the high 
altar, make this hallowed spot a meeting-ground 
of fact and fable, and invest the annals of the 
Confessor's shrine with a wierd interest and a 



Westminster Abbey. 185 

lasting charm. There are remains still stand- 
ing of the Confessor's work which replaced the 
humbler Church of Sebert built four hundred 
years before, and one can see stores laid over 
eight centuries ago in order where they shall 
continue undisplaced till time shall be no more. 
Two centuries after Edward's death, Henry III. 
became the second founder of the "Collegiate 
Church of S. Peter" at Westminster. Edward 
I. continued the work, and in 1502 Henry VII. 
pulled down the Lady Chapel and erected in its 
place the exquisite perpendicular chapel which 
bears his name. It is the richly-decorated butt- 
resses of this portion of the Abbey that strike 
the eye of the observer who approaches from 
Parliament street, while from the square bear- 
ing the name of the Broad Sanctuary, one sees 
the varied outline of the whole structure, broken 
only by S. Margaret Church and disfigured 
solely by "Wren's poor towers." We paced 
again and again the marble pavement of this 
"antique pile," viewing now its marvellous ar- 
chitectural beauty, the springing arches resting 
their bases on clustered columns of massive size 
as they bear aloft the " arch'd and ponderous 
roof" ; noticing the wonderful tracery cut in the 
imperishable stone above 5 around, beside us ; 



1 86 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

and now admiring the coloring which deepens 
the shadows amidst the quiet chapels and along 
the fretted aisles, and floods the tombs of Kings 
and warriors, priests and poets, courtiers and 
commoners, with rainbow hues. 

It was not till we were somewhat wonted to 
the spot, aid aisles and cloisters, cenotaphs and 
effigies, had become in a measure familiar to 
our eyes, that we could shake oft' the overpow- 
ering sense of grandeur and awe, and address 
ourselves to the task of a closer inspection. It 
was then that we began to realize the presence 
of the mighty dead. Fourteen monarch s of Eng- 
land lie here amidst their nobles and warriors. 
Fourteen queens are here entombed, with numer- 
ous princes and princesses of royal blood. It is 
Macaulay who reminds us that this is " the great 
temple ol silence and reconciliation, where the 
enmities of twenty generations lie buried ;" and 
so, as we pass "through rows of warriors and 
through walks of kings," we are confronted by 
the memorials of rival dynasties and contending 
parties. Almost side by side rise the stately 
monuments of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her 
rival and murderess, Queen Elizabeth. Here, 
too, rests " Bloody" Mary, and the boy King, 
Edward VI., whom Hooker says, that "though 



Westminster Abbey. 187 

he died young, he lived long, for life is in ac- 
tion." Near by, the remains of Cromwell were 
laid among those of the Kings, into whose place 
he had thrust himself, and hence they were 
taken at the Restoration, to be dragged to 
Tyburn, hanged, decapitated, and buried under 
the gallows. Archbishop Ussher, the pride of 
scholars and the glory of Ireland's Church ; the 
Earl of Clarendon, the incorruptible statesman 
and the historian of the Great Rebellion ; the 
Duke of Marlborough, England's most success- 
ful commander ; Lord Howe, the captor of 
Ticonderoga, and the friend of the American 
colonies ; Wolfe, the conqueror of Quebec ; 
Burgoyne, whose surrender cost England the 
loss of the thirteen colonies ; the unfortunate 
Andre, whose fate two hostile nations mourned ; 
Lord Chatham, Wm. Pitt, Fox, Grattan, Can- 
ning, Peel, Palmerston, Warren Hastings, Wil- 
liam Wilberforce — these are among the namesof 
the great and good the eye of the pilgrim notes 
as he wanders through aisles and cloisters, chap- 
els and choir. But it is in the Southern Tran- 
sept, known for years as the " Poets' Corner," 
that one's interest culminates. Here rests Geof- 
frey Chaucer, "well of English undefiled," who 
died in the precincts and was buried in the 

J 3 



1 88 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Abbey, October, 1400. Here Edmund Spen- 
cer, who also died near by, in King Street, 
Westminster, was buried. The poets of his 
day followed the bier, and elegies and poems 
with the pens that wrote them, were thrown 
into the open grave. Think for a moment ot 
the scene at the obsequies of the author of the 
Faerie Queene, at which Francis Beaumont, 
John Fletchef, Ben Jonson, and we can hardly 
doubt, Shakespeare himself, were present. 
Think of the " grave in which the pen ot 
Shakespeare may be mouldering away !" The 
famous inscription cut in the blueish marble, 
" Rare Ben Jonson," is the simple memorial 
of Shakespeare's friend, whose remains are 
buried standing upright, awaiting the Resurrec- 
tion. Davenant, whose name tradition links with 
Shakespeare's, and facts, with Milton's career, 
lies in the grave into which that gossiping 
chronicler, Pepys, looked, with curious eyes. 
Here rests Cowley, some of whose lines the 
world will never suffer to be forgotten, at whose 
burial, John Evelyn tells us, nobles, bishops, 
clergy, and all " the wits of the town," were 
present. John Dryden, educated at Westmin- 
ster school, where his name is still to be seen 
carved on a school bench, is buried at Chaucer's 



Westmi?ister Abbey. 189 

feet, so close that the father of modern English 
poety was almost laid in the grave of the father 
of ancient English poetry. Monuments of Mil- 
ton, Butler, Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Thomp- 
son, Gay and Watts," have here their places. 
Steele and Addison, Richard Congreve, Mat- 
thew Prior, John Gay, Dr. Johnson, Richard 
Brinsley Sheridan, Thomas Campbell, and Lord 
Macaulay, have each a monument here. It was 
with no little emotion, that, as we were looking 
at the " storied urns and animated busts " around 
us, we suddenly chanced to note at our feet, the 
freshly cut letters, " Charles Dickens." Memo- 
rials of Southey, Wordsworth and Thackeray, 
are near at hand. David Garrick is here com- 
memorated by a monument, with all the emblems 
of the tragic muse, which provoked the criticism 
of the gentle " Elia." Statues of Mrs. Siddons 
and John Philip Kemble, the one by Chantly 
and the other by Flaxman, add their proof that 
from this mausoleum of England's noble dead, 
actors are not shut out. Purcell, whose exqui- 
sive chants and anthems are still sung in 
churches and cathedrals all over the world, has 
a memorial here, and so has Handel, who 
breathed his last, as he had devoutly wished to 
do, "on Good Friday, in hopes, he said, of 



190 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

meeting his good God, his sweet Lord and 
Saviour, on the day of his resurrection." And so 
we might go on to speak of Newton's splendid 
monument, at the base of which we sat one 
Summer Sunday evening, listening to the elab- 
orated periods and graceful elocution of the cel- 
ebrated Dean Stanley ; and the memorials of 
the learned Barrow, the inimitable South, and 
that prince of pedagogues, Dr. Busby ; of Gran- 
ville Sharp, scholar and philanthropist ; of Watt 
and Stephenson, the great engineers ; of Thomas 
Parr, who lived through the ten reigns from 
Edward IV. to Charles I., and died at the age of 
152. A scratched monogram of his well-known 
name on Isaac Casaubon's memorial tablet, with 
the date 1658, is the work of that genial church- 
man and fisherman, Izaak Walton, to whose 
grave in a distant cathedral, we had earlier 
made our loving pilgrimage. 

Passing from these memorials of the dead 
who live in song and story, to our own recol- 
lections, there are two reminiscences which we 
cannot fail to record. The burial of a bishop 
who had been one of the most noted scholars of 
his day, was one of these notworthy events of 
our visit, and a sermon in the Abbey by an 
American clergyman is even yet of so rare 



Westminster Abbey. 191 

occurrence as to make its mention pardonable in 
a recital of personal experiences. Joining the 
crowd filling the nave, transepts and choir, of 
this glorious temple, one beautiful summer day, 
we waited the coming of the procession which 
was to bear the Bishop of St. David's, the 
scholarly Thirlwall, to his honored grave.* The 
sunlight with myriad hues filled the interior and 
made everything bright and glorious. Solemn 
music from the grand organ at length announced 
the entrance of the funeral train. Preceded by 
the venerable Verger, bearing his ponderous sil- 
ver mace, the surpliced choir, the Dean, wear- 
ing the Collar of the Garter, and Canons, and 
clergy, with scholars and friends, moved in sol- 
emn state, bearing the coffin of polished oak, 
with a full length Latin cross of brass, resting 
upon its top. The pall was borne by six pre- 
lates, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose 
train was supported by a chorister boy, and the 
Bishops of London, Winchester, Ely, St. David's 
and Melbourne. As the cortege moved through 
the narrow space railed oft' from the crowd of 
interested spectators, the sombre aisles and 
arches re-echoed the solemn melody of Croft's 
burial anthem, " I am the Resurrection and the 
Life, saith the Lord," "I know that my Re- 



192 Seme Summer Days Abroad. 

deemer Liyeth," " We brought notlrng into 
this World and it is certain we can carry noth- 
ing away." Entering the gates of the choir 
the Bishops passed to their places on either side 
of the magnificent altar, the Archbishop taking 
his position at the north side, and the Bishop of 
London at the Epistle side, while the other Pre- 
lates were grouped around. The Dean and 
clergy occupied their accustomed stalls, and as 
the body rested upon the altar rail, the choir 
sang the coth Psalm, the second of the two set 
forth in the English office, which have been 
somewhat abbreviated and united in a single 
anthem in our own. Grating strangely on the 
strains of the Dojtzine refugium , were the incon- 
gruous sounds of the workmen, who were with 
pick and bar, enlarging somewhat the dimen- 
sions of the grave, but as the minor notes of the 
chant modulated into the melody of the Gloria 
Patri, the work was done, and nothing marred 
the effect of the funeral lesson, read solemn'y 
and distinctly by the venerable Archdeacon Jen- 
nings, from his stall. At the close of the lesson. 
the Dean and Precentor passed through the west 
door of the choir to the south Transept, where 
the grave awaited its tenant, while the funeral 
procession left by the gate nearest to the altar 



Westminster Abbey. 193 

rails. Here the choristers resumed the service 
as musically arranged by Croft, "Man that is born 
of a woman hath but a short time to live and 
is full of misery," changing to PurcelFs exqui- 
site anthem " I Heard a Voice from Heaven," 
following the committal, which was read by the 
Dean in his sonorous voice, the sound of the 
"earth to earth" upon the metal cross of the 
coffin-lid, giving forceful emphasis to his words. 
The sentences and prayers were read by the 
Dean with great pathos, while the musical 
"Amens" rang through the Abbey their melo- 
dious refrain. Before the closing benediction, 
Handel's funeral anthem, with the appropriate 
words, " His body is buried in peace, but His 
Name liveth forever," was admirably rendered 
by the choir, ending in an outburst of triumphant 
song. The open grave was filled with wreaths 
and chaplets of all the bright hues of midsum- 
mer, and, after this mark of affection and re: ard, 
the funeral train retired, the organ pealing forth 
the strains of the magnificent "Dead March in 
Saul." Slowly the crowd of spectators left the 
church. They had given most reverent attention 
from first to last, though to many the eye could 
not see, and the ear but imperfectly hear, what 
was being done within the Choir and Transept, 



194 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

but the impressions of tie place and ^cene were 
evidently profound, and even on emerging into 
the noon day glare and bustle without, one and 
all went silently away, leaving behind the mor- 
tal remains of a great and gifted Bishop of the 
Church of God, in his last resting place, till the 
day of doom. 

The Dean over whose household there had 
been thrown a lasting gloom by the recent de- 
mise of his wife, the beloved Lady Augusta 
Stanley, who was the friend of royalty and of 
the poor as well, had kindly sent us an invita- 
tion to his historic home, and the visit was one 
to be remembered, bringing out, as our conver- 
sation did, the Dean's wonderful acquaintance 
with the history, not only of the Church of 
England, but of our own less widely-known 
communion. It was in pleasant rt cognition of 
kindred tastes, and doubtless intended as a 
graceful act of intercommunion, that on our 
return from the continent we were invited to 
preach in the Abbey one Sunday afternoon in 
October, 1875, and the theme suggested to us 
was that of "Anglo-American Sympathy 
with Continental Reform," *involvip£ the re- 

* The sermon was published in London immediately after its 
delivery and placed on the list of the Anglo-Continental Society, 
whose cause it most heartily advocated. 



Westminster Abbey. 195 

cital of personal impressions and experiences 
at the then recent Conference of the Old 
Catrnlics at Bonn. Two other priests of the 
American Church had earlier occupied the 
Abbey pulpit ; our old instructor and rector, Dr. 
Alexander H. Vinton, and a fellow student at 
"Harvard," who had become the most distin- 
guished of the preachers of the American Church, 
Dr. Phillips Brooks. It was with no little anx- 
iety and apprehension that the invitation to stand 
in such a place and preach to such an audience 
as gathered to these special services, was ac- 
cepted, but, reassured by Dean Stanley's kind- 
ly welcome, as we presented ourselves at the 
Abbey in " surplice, stole and hood," and with 
Oxford cap, agreeably to the instructions we had 
received, we were shortly on our way, preceded 
by the Verger and followed by the Dean, to- 
gether with choristers and canons, to the choir, 
which was filled, together with the Transepts, 
and out into the nave. The service was choral 
and so sweetly sung as to calm one's agitation 
and fit the mind for the full enjoyment of the 
Church's praise and prayer. After the third Col- 
lect, a Verger escorted me from my seat within 
the Altar rail, to the pulpit, and catching the 
note of the Abbey as I prefaced my sermon with 



196 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

the Collect and Lord's Prayer, I was soon in the 
midst of my discourse, happily conscious that 
my words were heard. Soon the Ascription 
announced that the duty had been discharged, 
and, after the prayers which followed the ser- 
mon, the procession formed for the return to the 
Deanery. A few kindly words from the Dean 
prefaced his thoughtful proffer of being my 
guide to some portions of this historic pile, not 
generally accessible. 

It was indeed a privilege to visit with the 
historian and custodian of the Abbey, the famed 
Jerusalem Chamber, where King Henry IV. died 
on the 20th day of March, 1413, agreeably to 
an old prophesy to which Shakespeare alludes, 

"Bear me to that Chamber; there I'll lie — 
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die." 

It was in this historic room that the strange 
conversion of Prince Henry, from the disso- 
luteness of youth to the soberness and devotion 
which marked his after life, occurred, which 
Monstrelet chronicles and Shakespeare has im- 
mortalized. Here, too, during the great rebel- 
lion, the Westminster Assembly of Divines met 
day after day, while preparing the Directory, 
the Longer and Shorter Catechism, and the 
Confession of Faith, which are still the symbol- 



Westminster Abbey. 197 

ical books of Presbyterianism. In the spacious 
library, filled with valuable books and pictures 
of noted Deans, there has been found within the 
last few years an opening into a secret cham- 
ber, which w..s doubtless the scene of the con- 
spiracy of the AbLot William, of Colchester, to 
which Shakespeare makes mention in the last 
part of Richard IJ. Here, doubtless, the 
Jacobite Atterbury plotted the restoration of 
the House of Stuart, and the proclamation of 
James III., at Charing Cross. In this house, 
Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of Edward IV., 
took refuge twice, and here Edward V. was born 
and baptized, while the Queen mother was in 
" Sanctuary," and here she parted forever with 
her sons. Full of most suggestive memories 
was every step we took, and every spot we 
looked upon. It was late ere I bade my kind 
guide a grateful farewell and returned to our 
London home in Euston Square. 



XVIII. 

London Streets and London Sights. 

WE are treading, as we wend our way through 
the myriad streets and among the more 
than myriad sights of the world's metropolis, 
amid the scenes of the lives and labors of suc- 
cessive generations for more than two millen- 
niums. Geoffrey of Monmouth, an old British 
chronicler, gossips of the foundation of this city 
by the Tiojan Brute, after the likeness of great 
Troy, before that built by Rcmulus and Remus, 
a thousand years before the coming of Christ, 
but without resoit to legend there is no doubt 
but that the " Londinium," spoken of as " illus- 
trious," by Tacitus, was built on the site of a 



London Streets and London Sights. 199 

British city whose origin and annals are lost in 
the twilight of history. Fragments of the old 
Roman walls built in the fourth century still 
exist, laid stone upon stone, as these old master- 
builders placed them ; and one passes through 
thorou^hfaies to-day which bear the names of 
Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, 
and Ludgate, and mark the approaches to the 
" city " as they did in the age of Constantine. 
The debris of centuries has raised the modern 
city much above the level of the London of the 
Romans, but the remains of tessellated pave- 
ments, cinerary urns, lachrymatories, and the red 
Samian ware, attest the extent and opulence of 
the " Colony." Here thousands of Romans and 
their allies fell before the cruel vengeance of the 
outraged Boadicea. Ashes of wood and molten 
glass and blackened pottery, found in our own 
days, a score of feet and more below the surface, 
tell of the consuming fire with which the in- 
censed Queen sought to burn out all traces of 
foreign rule and occupancy. For more than 
two centuries the silence of desolation and ruin 
brooded over the spot, and there is no mention 
of London in history. In Saxon days, Ethel- 
bert founded S. Paul's in the year 610. The 
Danes made the city a stronghold and the traces 



200 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

of their presence and power are yet found in 
the names of localities and churches still retained 
after the vicissitudes of twelve hundred years. 
Driven out by Alfred the Great it was not for 
years and only after varying fortunes of war that 
Edmund Ironside was the first monarch to be 
crowned in this, the foremost city of the land. 
Edward, the Confessor, built the Abbey and 
Palace of Westminster, and the grateful Lon- 
doners resisted for a time with success the en- 
trance of the Conqueror, though at length he se- 
cured the submission ot the people and received 
the keys of the city and the crown of England 
at the Confessor's tomb. The charter granted 
by King William is still preserved at Guildhall, 
and under this simple document, the Norman 
Mayor taking the place of the Saxon Portreeve 
as a designation of the highest civic dignitary, 
the city has grown with successive centuries to 
be the world's mart of trade, arid the leading 
centre of its population. The chapters in this 
city's annals, the story of its development 
through the successive centuries, its very broils 
and tumults, its religious and political martyr- 
doms, its connection with various or contending 
dynasties, its commercial importance and the 
control it has exercised over public opinion and 



London Streets and London Sights. 201 

modern thought, all form a part of the history 
of our race. 

The very names of London streets and sites 
teach us lessons in history, as we, in the lan- 
guage of Shakespeare, 

" Satisfy our eyes 

With the memorials and things of fame, 
That do renown this city. 

From many examples we select a few. It is 
Dr. Johnson who says, "I think the full tide of 
existence is at Charing Cross." Modern re- 
search refuses to find the derivation of the name 
of this interesting part of London in the title of 
Queen Eleanor, the beloved wife of Edward L, 
"La Chere Reinc" that u pious, modest, gentle 
woman, a lover of the English," whose memo- 
rial adorns this busiest spot of all the world. 
The fact, however, remains, that the bereaved 
King here erected the last and most magnificent 
of the nine crosses which marked the resting 
places of the good Queen's body on its way, from 
Lincoln where she died, to Westminster, where 
her hallowed ashes lie. Few others than this 
loving and loved woman have had their memo- 
rial newly raised and their virtues freshly and 
deeply cut in the enduring stone a thousand 
years after their life had passed away ! At 



202 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

Charing Cross we are on the Strand along which 
the ceaseless surging tide of life and labor ever 
ebbs and flows. Its name reminds us that once 
it followed the strand ox shore of the Thames, 
though now quite out of sight of the mighty 
stream. Near by is Covent Garden, the con- 
vent garden of Westminster, and now the fruit 
and flower mart of London, keeping thus its 
old name as well as its earlier associations, 
and being, as Thackeray describes it, a " com- 
mon centre into which Nature showers her 
choicest gifts, and where the kindly fruits of the 
earth often nearly choke the narrow thorough- 
fares." 

Following the Strand we notice the church 
of S.Clement Danes, the name of which has for 
over a thousand years borne witness of these 
turbulent invaders of England and the clemency 
of Alfred the Great, as well, who, in banishing 
the aliens whom he had conquered, suffered 
those who had married English wives to remain 
behind. Temple Bar has passed away, but its 
associations with literatnre and politics will ever 
cling to its site, while the Temple Church and 
the Inns of Court carry the visitor back in mind 
to the days of that famed order of religious 
knights, who, in their efforts for the recovery of 



London Streets and London Sights. 203 

the Holy Sepulchre, have leftbeh'nd them even 
in the midst of busy London, abundant traces 
of their pride and power. Smithfield will ever 
bring to recollection its old time Tournaments, 
described on Froissart's glowing page ; the tur- 
bulent scene when the "poor commons" lost 
their rebel leader, Wat Tyler, by the trenchant 
dagger of the Lord Mayor Walworth ; its wagers 
of battle in which the right did not always over- 
come opposing might ; its solemn martrydoms 
where the souls of reformers went home to God 
" in chariots and flames of fire ;" its Bartholo- 
mew's fair ; and its modern cattle market. Who 
will fail to connect Christ's Hospital, well styled 
by Bishop Middleton, " the noblest institution in 
the world," not only with the noted " Blue Coat 
Boys," who have risen to note in after years, but 
with good " Master Ridley," Bishop of London, 
who suggested the foundation of this famous 
school, and the boy King, Edward VI., who 
carried out the Bishop's plan. Nor may we 
forget the former occupants of this spot, the 
Grey Friars, who had for three hundred years 
held this site and made their religious house 
famous throughout the land. S. John's Gate, 
which Dr. Johnson, as Boswell tells us, " be- 
held with reverence," has not only its modern 



204 Soine Su?nmcr Days Abroad. 

and yohnsonian connection with the " Gen- 
tleman's Magazine," but is well worthy of 
reverent memory as the last relic of the noble 
priory of the Knights of S. John of Jerusalem. 
It is in " Clerkenwell," suggestive of the clerks, 
or clergy, well of curative power as mediaeval 
legends tell, that this old-time relic stands, and 
we visited it in company with our dear friend 
and host, the Master of the Charterhouse, with 
much of the same spirit in whieh the ponderous 
lexicographer sought the spot. What is the 
Tower but an epitome of English history rub- 
ricated in blood, blistered with the tears of mor- 
tal anguish? We walk these London streets and 
we turn aside to see these historic sights with 
the flood tide of recollection bringing back to 
mind the men and scenes of all past time. 

One cannot go amiss in London. Are you 
sauntering through Fleet street, named from that 
polluted stream, now happily concealed from 
view, 

"Than whom no sluice of mud 
With deeper sable blots the silver flood?" 

It was here that the "Devil Tavern" stood till 
a century since, where the Apollo Club had its 
meetings under the rhymed rules Benjonson 
wrote and where Swift and Addison and Dr. 



London Streets and London Sights. 205 

Johnson dined from time to time. Here is the 
" Cock " unchanged within from the style and 
days of James I., where Pepys came when he 
would be " mighty merry," and where Tennyson 
was wont to resort, and the "plump head wait- 
er," of which he apostrophises in " Will Water- 
proof s Lyrical Monologue." Here, too, the 
genial angler, Izaak Walton, lived at the cor- 
ner of Chancery Lane, and just beyond the poet 
Drayton had his home, in a bow-windowed house 
still contrasting its old-time architecture with 
the tasteless erections of our modern days. 
Close at hand Cowley was born, and in the 
happy days of boyhood gave his hours to the 
study of a folio copy of the Faerie Queene, which 
had its place on his mother's window-sill, till he 
became " irrecoverably a poet." In Aldersgate 
street, Milton had his " pretty garden-house." 
In Jewin street, near by, he married for the 
third time. He died in Bunhill Fields, and his 
grave is still to be seen in S.Giles', Cripplegate. 
In Bishopsgate street is Crosby Hall, now an 
eating-house, but one of the finest examples of 
the domestic architecture of the fifteenth century 
to be found in England. Shakespeare refers 
again and again to Crosby Hall, and in this 
palace home Richard III., when Duke of Glou- 



206 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

cester lived, while planning his nephew's re- 
moval from the throne. Here Sir Thomas 
More lived and wrote the life of the usurping 
King Richard. Here the first Earl of North- 
amption wooed and won, by a lover's strategem, 
the lovely Elizabeth Spencer, the greatest heir- 
ess in England. Here the Countess of Pembroke 
lived, " Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," 
whose epitaph, by Ben Jonson, is so widely 
known and admired. Amidst these and other 
crowding associations with the history and liter- 
ature of the past, we lunched right royally, 
conning our guide-books between the courses 
and quite admiring the thrift which thus pro- 
vides for the outer and inner man. Who can 
rightly tell the impressions made upon the 
stranger as he passes from room to room, by 
gate after gate, out upon the bloody " green " of 
the Tower? A volume would not contain the 
annals of the palace of Westminster and old S. 
Stephen's Hall. Who can fail to make the pil- 
grimage to Whitehall, where the a royal mar- 
tyr " laid his head upon the block to die by the 
executioner's blow ; or, if in another vein, pass 
lovingly the South Sea House, where the gentle 
Elia had his desk and duty through his years of 
patient toil ; or, at the " nooning" seek, it may 



London Streets and London Sights. 207 

be, the noted " Dolly's Chop House," under the 
shadow of S. Paul's ; or, visit the cool and spa- 
cious "Rainbow," where Dickens was wont to 
resort, or lunch at the dingy " Cheshire Cheese," 
where the wits of the day are apt to congregate ; 
or at the '-Mitre," where Johnson was a fre- 
quent visitor. Thus are the shops, the streets, 
the inns, the very pavements, peopled with the 
men of letters and history, whose lives seem to 
confront us as we walk abroad, while their 
memorials guard their ashes in the cloisters of 
England's mausoleum of her mighty dead at 
Westminster. Day after day we paced the 
countless highways and byways of this mighty 
city, seeking, as pilgrims, the homes and sep- 
ulchres of the dead. They lived again in our 
mind and memory as our feet trod the holy 
ground they trod, and our eyes looked out upon 
the sights and scenes they saw. Thus, though 
a man die, he shall live again and forever, even 
in the places which shall know his bodily pres- 
erce no more, if he has lived wisely and well — 
not for himself but for others. 



XIX. 



THE CLOSING DAYS. 



BEFORE leaving for the continent we were to 
preach at S. Paul's. An earlier invitation 
extended by the Dean and Chapter we had been 
forced to decline, in consequence of other en- 
gagements, but on the first Sunday in August 
we officiated in that stately Cathedral, which is 
the centre of so many and such potent Church 
activities. It was one of Canon Liddon's Sun- 
days in residence, and not at the least of one's 
unwillingness to speak in such a place and to 
such a auditory as gathers there thrice every 
Lord's day, was the presence of confessedly 



The Closing Days. 209 

the greatest orator of the Church of England. 
But Canon Liddon was an old friend with 
whom we had spent several days on the conti- 
nent in that charming University town on the 
Rhine, Bonn, where the Old Catholic Conference 
of i875 was held, and his kindness soon put the 
preacher at ease. The service was as usual. 
The noble choir rendered the "Evensong" with 
their accustomed sweetness and power. That 
grand old organ gave forth its noblest strains 
under the touch of the celebrated Dr. Stainer, 
and escorted by the Vergers and accompanied 
by Canon Liddon, we took our place in the long 
procession of choristers and clergy, and, after 
one of Sterndale Bennett's anthems, preached to 
the thousands filling the space under the dome 
and far out into the transepts and nave. The 
sea of heads before one was of itself exh iterating. 
The kindly hint of the Canon, to address one's 
self to a prominent statue of Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, on the opposite side of the nave, to avoid 
awakening the echoes from above, was not lost, 
and it was a satisfaction, after the ordeal was 
passed, to learn that the sermon was audible to 
the crowd of auditors, some of whom, oddly 
enough, chanced to be from far-away Iowa. 
One of the u Hymns Ancient and Modern," was 



210 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

sung and the service closed, the congiegation 
standing as the procession of choristers and 
clergy passed to the apse. Ere the pulpit was 
fairly left an officious reporter clamoured in 
vain for the manuscript of the sermon for publi- 
cation, and, as afterwards appeared, had his 
revenge for the refusal in issuing a most inaccu- 
rate report. The Canon kindly gave his thanks 
with his parting salutations, and one of the long- 
to-be-remembered events of one's life was over. 
Briefly must we allude to the Sheffield 
Church Congress, where we were most hospita- 
bly entertained at the beautiful mansion of Mr. 
Alderman Moore, of Ashdell Grove. Oar host 
was one of the leading men of Sheffield, and he 
and his son, the Rev. H. H. Moore, M. A., 
Vicar of Darvven, were untiring in their efforts 
to render our visit to Sheffield and its surround- 
ings most pleasant. The meetings of the Con- 
gress were interesting and instructive. Crowds 
attende each discussion, and the utmost capac- 
ities of the two largest halls in the town were 
insufficient to accommodate all who sought to 
attend the debates and addresses. Our own part 
was to give an account of the Cathedral of the 
Diocese of Iowa, and the simplicity of its organ- 
ization, the economy of its management, and the 



The Closing Days, 21 1 

efficiency with which the results sought were 
attained, elicited great praise at the time, and 
later, secured a gratifyingpublic recognition from 
the English Church press. The most interesting 
meeting in connection with the Congress was the 
gathering of thousands of Sheffield workingmen, 
who listened with an enthusiasm we have rarely 
seen excelled, to the addresses of the Archbishop 
or York, the Bishops of Carlisle and Manchester, 
who spoke with directness and earnestness, as 
well as simple, unaffected eloquenee, moving all 
hearts. A day on the moors, where we were 
taken by our kind hosts, to the Alderman's 
" shooting-box:," and the pleasant hours at the 
home circle, are not to be forgotten among our 
many cherished memories of English hospitality. 
It was here that we learned to know and love 
the wife of our host and the mother of our dear 
friend, the Vicar of Darwen, who, in her gentle, 
winsome womanliness, won our hearts, and is 
remembered by us raoit lovingly, now that she 
has ' w fallen asleep." Alas ! that so many whom 
we met and found so dear to us during these 
happy summer days abroad, have passed from 
earth. We shall see them no more till we meet 
them in the home above ! 

The end draws near. We had met the Arch- 



212 Some Summer Days Abroad. 

bishop of Canterbury, with his family, at our 
hotel, the Beau Rivage, in Geneva, Switzerland, 
and Mrs. Tait had arranged for a visit at Ad- 
dington Park, one of his Grace's summer resi- 
dences, just before we sailed. We could only 
give a couple of days to this visit, but our wel- 
come was so hearty, and the pains taken for our 
pleasure so unceasing, that the remembrance of 
each moment is still a source of delight. The 
inner life of the Primate of AH England is as 
simple and saintly as that-of the most ascetic of 
his predecessors in the seat of S. Austin. The 
day of work begins and ends with the Church's 
prayers, and the intervening hours are spent by 
each and all the household alike in the dis- 
charge of deeds of mercy and benevolence, or 
else in words of kindliness and love. We were 
at Addington Park, as we had been again and 
again at Lambeth Palace, while the shadow of a 
great, and so far as earth is concerned, a hope- 
less sorrow brooded over the bereaved house- 
hold. But they sorrowed not as tho>e without 
hope, for the pure and winning life which had 
been so suddenly and mysteriously ended. And 
now, as we review the walks and drives, the 
conversations and the marked attentions which 
were ours at this brief visit, and remember that 



The Closing Days. 213 

the beloved wife, the devoted mother, sleeps in 
Jesus, reunited in the Paradise of God with the 
only son and the earlier lost to earth, we rev- 
erently thank God for the good example, the 
pure conversation, and the sweet and saintly life 
of Catherine Tait. Little thought we, as with 
tearful eyes and yet with the full consolation of 
a high and holy hope, she pointed out to us the 
new-turfed resting-place of her son, whom we 
had met on our own shores, that in a few weeks 
she would be lying beside him in the dust of 
the earth, awaiting a joyful resurrection. It was 
a privilege to have seen and known this lovely 
woman, and to have had a glimpse of the home 
life which was so soon to be disturbed. Thanks 
be to Him Who breathed benedictions on those 
who mourn, that He, the gracious Saviour, has 
whispered peace to the beloved husband and 
the orphaned daughters of this stricken family ! 
A few days at Oxford, with kind Mrs. Combe 
and our dear friends, Prof, and Mrs. Montagu 
Burrows, a hurried visit at the hospitable Dean- 
ery at Chester, which we had left for the steamer 
once before, and we were again on the Atlantic, 
favored with pleasant gales, wafting us home- 
ward to our work. 



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